Woman Pleads Guilty To Helping Husband Fake His Death

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...womanpleadsguiltytohelpinghusbandfakehisdeath

It's one of the more bizarre criminal cases the Austin area has seen in a while. A few weeks after her husband was supposedly burned beyond recognition in a car wreck, Molly Daniels introduced her four-year-old son to her new boyfriend, Jake Gregg. However, investigators said Gregg looked much like her dead husband, Clayton Wayne Daniels, with his hair dyed black. Molly Daniels pleaded guilty in a Williamson County state district court Tuesday to insurance fraud and hindering apprehension. Prosecutors say she plotted with her husband to use the corpse of an 81-year-old woman to fake her husband's death. She faces probation to 20 years in prison. Her husband, Clayton Daniels, remains jailed in neighboring Burnet County pending trial on arson charges. A prosecutor says the Leander couple acted out of greed to collect on a $110,000 life insurance policy.

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It turns out that Clayton is 23 years old.

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http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/casey/3069536

Next time you're sitting on a jury listening to a medical examiner with several pages of scientific credentials explain exactly how the victim died and what it has to do with the accused, keep this notion in mind:

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You'd think after a few thousand autopsies, an M.E. would know a penis when he saw one.

Nobody would question Dr. Vladimir Parungao's credentials. He worked in the Harris County Medical Examiner's office for 20 years before taking early retirement five years ago.

Upset with his boss, then-Chief Medical Examiner Joye Carter, and the atmosphere of controversy over which she presided, he said the morale was so low that it was affecting his health.

That's how he ended up working in the Travis County M.E.'s office and how, I predict, he guaranteed himself a place in next year's Texas Monthly Bum Steer Awards.


Charred body fragment
It began last June 18 when Parungao performed an autopsy on a body found by law enforcement officials on a rural road in Burnet County.

There wasn't much left to the charred body. Parungao's two-page autopsy report said the residue weighed only 12 pounds and was 26 inches long.

Parungao described it as "that of a probable 23-year-old, white man.

"The abdomen cavity was also diffusely charred with exposure of the abdominal organs," Parungao reported. "There was a small segment of penis noted."

His conclusion, which lacks a verb or two: "It is my opinion, based upon the autopsy findings, that the decedent, Clayton Wayne Daniels, charred body, the cause and manner of death was undetermined."

The doctor knew from police reports that the car had belonged to Daniels, and that his wife had told Texas Rangers that a shoe sole found in the car was her husband's, and that he had left it in the car that morning.

But six weeks ago Parungao found himself writing a new report, an "addendum and correction."


Women are different
It was mostly the same report but with two significant changes.

The first was the heading that said "Unidentified Human" instead of "Clayton Wayne Daniels."

A DNA report had come back indicating that the body wasn't Daniels.

The second was this: "The external genitalia was charred, however there was a small tissue were (sic) the penis was supposed to be."

Actually, this "clarification" needs clarification itself. Medically speaking, it looks like no actual penis was supposed to be there.

Women don't have them.

Law enforcement officials now believe the body was Charlotte Davis, who died in 2003 at the age of 81.

Based on a tip, officials dug up her coffin three weeks ago and found only an empty pillow case in it. According to a report in the Austin American-Statesman, Daniels' wife had confirmed that her husband had dug up a woman's body and gave them a rough description of the locale of the cemetery.

Husband and wife were arrested. Daniels was charged with arson, and his wife with insurance fraud and hampering her husband's arrest.

Daniels had reason to fake his death. In 2002 he accepted a plea bargain in connection with sexual assault of a child. He was given 10 years' probation and deferred adjudication.

But he failed to register as a sex offender, as required, and to honor appointments with his probation officer. Three days after the car burning he was scheduled to go to jail for 30 days.

Now he may face the full 10 years, plus punishment for the grave-robbing caper.

Dr. Parungao, meanwhile, has retired once again. I was unable to reach him for comment, but I wouldn't be too harsh in my judgment of him.

Pure science would hardly assume that the charred body was a male, but Parungao had information from police and he let that information cloud his scientific judgment. It's not a rare occurrence.

Given the caseloads of medical examiners, the quality of their science is sometimes suspect.

What's more, they often become part of the law enforcement culture, viewing police agencies as their clients.

And as much as they are professional scientists, they are also professional testifiers. The courtroom culture combines with the law enforcement culture to encourage more certitude than science itself provides.