Were Brown X-rays purposely destroyed

WASHINGTON — The head of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology’s forensic photography unit, like two other senior officials before her, has come forward to publicly claim the military improperly handled the investigation of the death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.

Chief Petty Officer Kathleen Janoski, a 22-year Navy veteran, also says she was told missing evidence of a possible homicide had been purposely destroyed. Janoski, the senior enlisted person at AFIP’s Rockville, Md., offices, was present when Brown’s body was examined by military pathologists at Dover AirForce Base in Delaware.

The examination of Brown’s remains took place four days after an Air Force CT-43 jet carrying him and 34 others crashed into a mountainside near Croatia’s Dubrovnik airport on April 3, 1996.

Janoski had initially declined to be interviewed but changed her mind shortly before a gag order was issued to AFIP staff. She came forward, she said, because AFIP had failed to properly investigate possible wrongdoingby its own officials in the Brown case, and because of the way the military treated two AFIP pathologists, Air Force Lt. Col. Steve Cogswell and Army Lt. Col. David Hause.

In Tribune-Review articles last month, Cogswell and Hause both went public about a small circular hole found in the very top of Brown’s head. Both pathologists contend it looked like a gunshot wound and should have prompted an autopsy. No autopsy was performed.

Janoski said she was disturbed by criticism of the lieutenant colonels and suggestions that their actions may be politically motivated. She described both pathologists as “serious professionals” and “competent.”

Partisan politics has nothing to do with the issues at hand, she suggested, noting that she has been a lifelong and active Democrat, beginning with volunteer work for the 1972 presidential campaign of George McGovern. She says she voted for Bill Clinton and is proud to receive a White House Christmas card each year for having worked as a volunteer at the Clinton White House.

INTERNAL PROBE

After Cogswell’s allegations first surfaced in the Tribune-Review, AFIP launched an internal investigation of Cogswell and others to find out why and how the information about Brown’s head wound got to the press.

Janoski said she was stunned that the AFIP inquiry focused on the actions of Cogswell when she felt the real issue was AFIP’s handling of Brown’s death.

“The investigation is nothing more than a witch hunt.(AFIP) should be investigating what happened to the missing head X-rays. No one at AFIP seems to care that Brown did not receive an autopsy,” Janoski said.

On Easter Sunday, 1996, the task of examining Brown’s body fell to Col. William Gormley, the highest-ranking AFIP officer at Dover that day.

While Gormley conducted an external examination of Brown’s body, Janoski was busy photographing and documenting his injuries. Brown was still partially clad in a his torn trousers. His body was intact, with chemical burns to his torso and face and several noticeable lacerations on the front, sides and top ofhis head.

As she continued to shoot photos, she noticed a large area of torn skin that left the top of Brown’s skull exposed.

She was startled to find another injury. Dead center on the top of the head she observed what appeared to her to be a gunshot wound: a perfectly circular hole in the skull.

“Wow, look at the hole in Ron Brown’s head. It looks like a gunshot wound,” Janoski recalls exclaiming.

Janoski has served as chief of forensic photography for 2-1/2 years, and has, by her account, handled numerous cases involving either gunshots or plane crashes. She received training at the FBI Academy and elsewhere in observing, identifying and photographing gunshot and other wounds.

Janoski’s comments caused an immediate hubbub in the morgue facility, and several pathologists came over to view the wound — one was Hause, a former Gulf War combat surgeon with significant plane accident and gunshot experience. Hause examined the hole and said it looked like a .45 caliber gunshot entry wound.

Gormley, who has approximately 25 years of experience in pathology, has said he, too, identified the wound as a “red flag” and that he consulted with other pathologists present, including Hause and Navy Cmdr.Edward Kilbane.

“They agreed it looked like an entrance gunshot wound,”Gormley recalled in a recent television interview.

In two interviews with the Tribune-Review, Gormley maintained he ruled out the possibility of a gunshot because he observed, on closer inspection, that the circular hole did not penetrate Brown’s skull into the brain. He said the brain was not visible, and had a bullet struck Brown’s head, it would have penetrated the skull.

Soon after the Tribune-Review published a photograph of the wound as well as photos of X-rays that showed the skull had been penetrated, Gormley changed his story.

During a television appearance, he admitted that the photo and X-ray indeed showed the skull was penetrated and Brown’s brain was visible.

Gormley noted it had been more than a year and a half since the Brown crash, and said he had simply forgotten what the wound looked like. In his initial report on the examination, Gormley noted an unidentified cylindrical object had penetrated the skull. He maintained that the hole definitely wasn’t a gunshot wound because X-rays showed no slug or metal fragments in the head, and there was no exit wound.

In a recent press statement, AFIP said extensive “forensic tests” disproved a bullet theory. Janoski said she was present for the entire examination and she did not observe any forensic tests, such as those for gunpowder residue around the wound.

MISSING X-RAYS

In addition to pictures of the corpse itself, Janoski took photos of the original head and body X-rays while they were pinned to a lightbox.

After her slide film was developed, Janoski said she stored the images, which are typically used by pathologists for lectures and not part of the official case file, in her office desk.

Almost six months later, Janoski said she was prompted to review the film after Brown’s name surfaced during a discussion with Jean Marie Sentell, a naval criminal investigator assigned to the AFIP. Sentell had also been present when Brown’s body was examined.

Janoski alleges Sentell told her the original X-rays of Brown’s head had been replaced in the case file. Janoski said she remembers that Sentell specifically told her “the first head X-ray that showed a ‘lead snowstorm’ was destroyed, and a second X-ray, that was less dense, was taken.”

Janoski said she had to ask, “What are you talking about?” in reference to Sentell’s phrase “lead snowstorm.” According to Janoski, Sentell explained that a lead snowstorm is the description of a pattern of metal fragments that appears on an X-ray after a bullet has disintegrated inside a body.

Janoski said Sentell did not say who destroyed the X-rays.

Sentell did not respond to repeated Tribune-Review phone messages seeking comment, even after being informed of Janoski’s statements. An AFIP spokesman said Sentell declined to be interviewed.

After the conversation with Sentell, Janoski said she rummaged through her own desk and found the slide film she had taken of the original head X-rays. She gave the film to Cogswell to review.

Cogswell contends the original frontal X-ray of Brown’s head indeed showed an apparent “lead snowstorm” of metal fragments in Brown’s head. Cogswell has stated that the suspicious hole and the X-ray should have prompted AFIP to notify the FBI that Brown’s death was a possible homicide.

Cogswell, too, has alleged that he heard that the first X-rays were destroyed.

Still curious about the matter, Janoski pulled out Brown’s official case file and discovered that the file contained only 15 X-rays of Brown, none of which were of the skull. She found neither of the original X-rays that she had photographed on the lightbox.

Janoski said she became terrified when she realized that “I possessed the only physical evidence that those X-rays ever existed.”

AFIP Director Col. Michael Dickerson has acknowledged that all skull X-rays of Brown are missing from the case file.

Gormley has stated that the initial head X-rays did show possible fragments that concerned him at the time, but that Brown’s head was X-rayed again and he discovered the pattern of fragments on the initial X-ray was actually caused by a defect in the reusable film cartridge.

The new images did not show any fragments in the head, but they, like the originals photographed by Janoski, have disappeared.

One of the pathologists involved questions the timing of AFIP’s explanation.

“I find it interesting that this explanation about the film cartridge defect came after Lt. Col. Cogswell made his allegations, and not at the time we were at Dover,” said Hause.

Hause, who made these comments to the Tribune-Review before a gag order had been placed on AFIP staff, said he does not recall ever being told there was a problem with the X-rays.

Janoski noted that the photos she took of other Brown X-rays on the light box did not show any such pattern.

Gormley and AFIP have not offered any explanation for how the X-rays disappeared. Gormley referred calls to AFIP spokesman Chris Kelly, who said that Gormley would not grant an additional interview.

In recent days, Janoski was contacted and asked if she stood by her earlier comments. She said she did and added that AFIP officials are determined to “turn Lt. Col. Cogswell into a scapegoat.”

She said AFIP investigators recently presented her with a list of questions that focused on how the photographic images had found their way to the press.

“I was never advised of my rights, and the tone and manner … was threatening and coercive,” she said.

Janoski reiterated to the Tribune-Review that she had done nothing improper, and that AFIP should be concentrating on why Ron Brown “did not receive a proper death investigation.”