Autopsies

The Los Angeles County coroner's office indefinitely delayed the release of Michael Jackson's autopsy results Thursday amid signs that police investigators were trying to determine the interplay between the pop star's personal physician and other medical professionals who treated Jackson in the months leading up to his death. Word of the delay followed a meeting between officials from the L.A.

A 20-year-old pregnant Marine who disappeared in December told victims' advocates at Camp Lejeune that she didn't feel threatened in the presence of the colleague she accused of raping her, who is now wanted in her death, Marine Corps officials said Tuesday. Marine Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean never violated the military protective order directing him to stay away from Lance Cpl.

It will take up to two weeks to determine the cause of Heath Ledger's death, the New York City Medical Examiner's Office said Wednesday, but police were investigating the possibility of a drug overdose as additional details emerged about the discovery of the 28-year-old actor's body. Authorities said a rolled-up $20 bill was found near Ledger's body on the floor of his loft, and that one of the women who discovered him had phoned actress Mary-Kate Olsen before she called authorities.

Surrounded by shade trees at the Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery, Kathleen Savio's grave is marked by a modest marble tombstone inscribed "Always In Our Hearts." Four years after her death was ruled an accidental drowning, officials this week said an autopsy on her exhumed body had determined she was killed. Savio's family has always suspected Drew Peterson -- whose divorce from Savio, 40, was just weeks from being finalized when she died -- of killing her.

When a relative discovered Sharon Waldorf's 64-year-old mother dead in her Paramount home, Waldorf asked her mom's physician about an autopsy. "The doctor didn't want us to do it," she recalls. Waldorf's mother had been in and out of the hospital that year with a series of strokes and seizures, and the doctor was confident that a stroke had killed her. Besides, the doctor said, an autopsy would cost several thousand dollars and insurance wouldn't pay. Waldorf and her two sisters insisted.

Autopsy decisions are usually made at a time when family members are already feeling vulnerable and overwhelmed. Here are some tips to help you decide whether to seek an autopsy and what to expect if you decide to go ahead. -- Will an autopsy be useful? An autopsy will generally provide additional information about the cause of death, and it may also turn up previously unknown information about the deceased's health issues.

The state of Mississippi moved Tuesday to improve what critics have called one of the nation's most poorly monitored criminal autopsy systems -- one that may have resulted in two innocent men spending years in prison. State Public Safety Commissioner Stephen B.

The body that was found packed in dry ice in a Newport Beach hotel room in March showed no evidence of physical trauma, according to a final autopsy report released Tuesday by the Orange County coroner's office. Monique Felicia Trepp, 33, died from a combined overdose of cocaine and alcohol, according to the report. Coroner's officials originally confirmed the cause of death in May.

An autopsy was performed Monday on the body of USC kicker Mario Danelo, but the cause of death was deferred pending toxicology results that could take six to eight weeks to process, according to a spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner's department. Danelo, who was 21, was found at the bottom of a cliff at Point Fermin Park in San Pedro on Saturday afternoon. Capt.

Napoleon Bonaparte died a more prosaic death than once thought, succumbing to stomach cancer rather than arsenic poisoning, according to new research. Theories that the French emperor was poisoned with arsenic have abounded since 1961, when an analysis of his hair showed elevated levels of the toxic element. But that element could have come from drugs used to treat the cancer.