Death in the family
Canadian non-fiction, Canadian authors (Non-fiction), Law and crime
Human-narrated audio
Summary
In the mid-'90s, the Ontario Coroner's office decided that death investigation teams needed to "think dirty." They wanted coroners, pathologists and police to be more suspicious--to "assume that all deaths are homicides until satisfied that they are not." They were… particularly concerned about pediatric deaths, which historically had been exceedingly difficult to investigate. Among those charged to "think dirty" was Dr. Charles Smith, Ontario's top pediatric forensic pathologist at the time. But with virtually no training in forensics, Dr. Smith was ill prepared for his work. Instead of basing his judgments on forensic evidence found during autopsies, he allowed himself to be swayed by circumstantial evidence. The defendants were often single mothers--some on welfare, some struggling with substance abuse. Dr. Smith made dangerous assumptions, and the results were catastrophic. 2017.