The Baltimore, Md., Medical Examiner’s Office has concluded that foul
play was not a factor in the death of key Waco expert, Carlos
Ghigliotti, 42, whose badly decomposed body was found April 28 in his
laboratory-office, located on the third floor of an office building in
Laurel, Md.
In a brief statement released Thursday, the Laurel Police Department
said that according to the autopsy report, the unattended death was of
natural causes: specifically, a heart attack brought on by
arteriosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. The press release also
stated that the department’s investigative services division had
terminated further investigation in the matter.
The decision was not unexpected.
“I’m not going to quarrel with the ME’s [medical examiner’s] report,”
attorney Michael Caddell, of Houston, Texas, told WorldNetDaily.
Caddell is one of several attorneys pursuing civil wrongful death
lawsuits on behalf of the survivors of the Waco tragedy and their
families. He had planned to bring Ghigliotti into the case as an expert
witness.
“The death of Carlos is a tremendous loss for our case,” Caddell
said. “There’s no one who had done as much work of the same quality in
this area as Carlos.”
Ghigliotti, a highly respected expert in the field of thermal
imaging, had just finished work for the House Government Reform
Committee analyzing surveillance film footage taken by Forward-Looking
Infrared, or FLIR, during the siege and final inferno of Mt. Carmel, the
Branch Davidians’ complex near Waco, Texas.
The FLIR footage, which was filmed by FBI aircraft above the site, is
a major element to the plaintiff’s case. Unlike ordinary film which
records light, with images registering in shades of black and white,
FLIR film registers heat, so flashes seen on it are not flashes of
light, but — experts agree — can show gun shots, including rounds
fired by automatic weapons.
For seven years a debate has raged over claims that on April
19, 1993, government agents fired automatic weapons upon Davidians
trying to escape as flames engulfed their home. To date, neither the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI, nor any other
government agency has admitted to having fired a shot in the final
assault that destroyed the Davidians’ home and resulted in the deaths of
82 people, 17 of them children.
When news of Ghigliotti’s death was made public, suspicions as to its
cause were raised by those involved in ongoing investigations and
litigation. The official findings by the Baltimore Medical Examiner’s
Office have not assuaged these concerns — not when three other experts
in the same field of work as Ghigliotti and who share his conviction
that the flashes on the FLIR tapes show gunshots have recently had close
calls with death.
There is Edward Allard, who appears in the documentary, “Waco: The
Rules of Engagement,” produced by Michael McNulty. On March 15 he
suffered a stroke, from which he has still not fully recovered.
Then there is FLIR expert Fred Zegel, a long-time associate of Allard
at the Pentagon, who at first disputed his colleague’s contention that
the flashes were gunfire. But, as he studied the footage, he changed
his mind and has agreed to be a witness for the plaintiffs. In April,
he reportedly went to a public auction where he collapsed and was rushed
to a hospital where he was diagnosed as having blood poisoning. He was
in a serious condition for 10 days.
Lastly, there’s Maurice “Mac” Cox, who according to his
website on
Waco, is a “recently retired mathematician/imagery analyst with 33 years experience in the technical intelligence field.” Cox served as a consultant for McNulty’s documentary. McNulty told WorldNetDaily Cox had recently had a serious renal [kidney] infection. However, he noted, Cox has had a “renal condition” for a number of years.
McNulty has a lot of doubts about how Ghigliotti died.
In his words, “I’m thinking about his death and the sequence of circumstances surrounding the illnesses of Fred Zegel, Allard and Mac Cox — that’s a lot of coincidences in a very short period of time — involving four men who basically were all involved in one narrow issue in one very sensitive lawsuit. That’s four of our FLIR experts — but I’ve not heard of any of the government experts having problems like this. That’s why it’s weird. It’s just too many coincidences.”
David Hardy, as reported in
WorldNetDaily, had serious misgivings about Ghigliotti’s death and posted information on his
website regarding what he views as the “suspicious” circumstances of the death — especially in light of the FLIR expert’s relative youth. Hardy told WorldNetDaily that upon learning of the autopsy results, he questioned an anesthesiologist who, in turn, backed the findings of the medical examiner.
“He told me, ‘Hey, it can happen,'” Hardy recalled. “Sure Carlos was young but my friend said death from a heart attack like that is not unknown. Apparently, if you’ve got bad genes and bad luck, you can be gone before you know it.”
Hardy added that although the anesthesiologist wasn’t concerned or surprised about Ghigliotti’s death, he was deeply “mystified” upon learning of the sudden illness of Fred Zegel.
“He said if you are healthy enough to go to a public auction, how do you suddenly become unconscious from it in the space of an hour. Allard? No problem. He was an older man who had a stroke. Carlos’? Bad luck. Maybe. But I would still like a second opinion,” said Hardy.
So, too, would Houston attorney James Brannon, who, like Caddell, is pursuing a civil suit for the Branch Davidians.
“The circumstances of his death remain suspicious to me because we know that there are methods by which people can be eliminated without it appearing on the autopsy findings,” Brannon told WorldNetDaily. “Now, I’m not saying anyone did him [Ghigliotti] in,” he said, “But I do say it’s just too coincidental for me.”
“To me, it’s a statistical thing,” he continued. “You can’t have Allard getting a stroke and a lot of other bad things, and then say — well, Ghigliotti, he’s just one of the many. Allard? Well, he did have a stroke. The blood poisoning of Fred Segal? Yeah, that’s a curious one. I haven’t talked with Segal to see what activities he was involved with from which he could have gotten blood poisoning.
“The problem is, you have a lot of things that are suspicious, or could be suspicious, but at the same time have perfectly plausible explanations — like Allard having a stroke. I don’t have any thoughts that the government made him have a stroke. But there could be a way to silence Ghigliotti. They couldn’t stand his testimony. Ghigliotti not only had gunfire — he had people and he had good enough equipment where he could show a bullet flying through the air.
“My theory is they figured a way to get rid of him — I could be wrong on that and there’s no way I can prove it,” he admitted.
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Waco expert’s death ‘suspicious’
Waco children lawsuit accelerates