Skeletons in the Closet

A mother calls 911 because her child, despite a fetal monitor, stopped breathing. She didn't know it, but the fetal monitor her doctor prescribed had a memory chip. Would the monitor's memory chip preserve evidence of a tragic accident or a murder?A young couple's marriage is crumbling, but they decide to take one last family trip. She will never return home. A pool of blood suggests she died from injuries caused by an accidental fall from a boat dock. So how did she wind up face down in the lake?For more than two decades, Dr. Stephen D. Cohle has been solving vexing forensic mysteries as the medical examiner for Kent County, Michigan. As a whole, the cases he considers represent a cross-section of crime in mid-America, often committed by a macabre cast of characters: Jekyll and Hyde alcoholics who turned homicidal; killers who resorted to the most bizarre methods in concealing their crimes; and the rarest species in the zoo of criminology, a two-woman team of serial killers.Based on his work with Dr. Cohle, true-crime writer Tobin T. Buhk recounts twenty-one riveting, real-life stories, each with a unique forensic twist. Offering a glimpse into the strange sights, sounds, and smells of the county morgue, these tales of intrigue, deception, and murder will fascinate true-crime buffs, fans of CSI, and readers of mystery and detective stories.Tobin T. Buhk (Grand Rapids, MI) is a freelance writer and the coauthor (with Stephen D. Cohle, MD) of Cause of Death. In preparation for writing this book, he observed and assisted Dr. Cohle and his forensic team in more than thirty-five autopsies.Stephen D. Cohle, MD (Grand Rapids, MI), a nationally recognized figure in the community of forensic medicine, is the chief medical examiner for Kent County, Michigan, and a forensic pathologist for Laboratory Pathologists, PC. He is the author (with Tobin T. Buhk) of Cause of Death and (with R. Byard) of Sudden Death in Infancy, Childhood, and Adolescence.