Although the California State Bar deemed him incompetent in a 2006 report on the Sonoma case [4], Gill ruled on more than 1,000 death investigations in eight California counties from 2007 to 2010.
Gill, 67, initially declined requests for interviews for this story. Approached by a reporter at his Fairfield home in December, he would not address specific cases or criticism of his work.
"I am a qualified forensic pathologist, and I have testified on numerous occasions," Gill said.
Later, in a written statement, Gill acknowledged that when he joined the Indianapolis coroner's office, "I had no formal training in forensic pathology and therefore made mistakes, particularly in pediatric cases where findings tend to be more subtle and complex."
Gill pointed out that his autopsy findings have not been contested or reversed since 2007.
Dr. Arnold Josselson, Forensic Medical Group's vice president, said he had seen Gill's work firsthand and trusted him. "I've observed him doing autopsies, and I think he's competent," Josselson said.
A Troubling History
When Gill started work at the Marion County Coroner's Office in Indiana on New Year's Day in 1993, he had performed only about 20 forensic autopsies since graduating from medical school 24 years earlier.
Certified specialists in forensic pathology, the science of unexplained deaths, have completed medical school and a four-year residency in pathology, plus an additional year of intensive training and autopsy work. According to the National Academy of Sciences, there are roughly 400 to 500 such practitioners nationwide, less than half the number needed to properly investigate suspicious or unattended deaths.
Gill, a neuropathologist by specialty, had spent the first two decades of his career teaching medical students at the Oregon Health & Science University and analyzing brain tissue for a nearby Veterans Affairs hospital.
But Gill has acknowledged during preparation for court testimony that he was stripped of his teaching duties in 1992, possibly due to a drinking problem that dated back to the mid-'80s. Gill gave written answers to nearly 200 questions that prosecutors anticipated defense attorneys would ask during a 2001 homicide trial. One inquired whether his drinking had affected his work in Oregon. "Probably," Gill wrote in response, "but no documentation."
Gill was willing to shift from brain study to death investigation if that meant better job prospects.
At the time, the Marion County coroner, who serves the Indianapolis metropolitan area was desperate for help. Left without autopsy services after a contract dispute, the office had bodies stacked up in its refrigeration units.
Gill worked seven days a week during his first several months in Indianapolis, examining four to eight bodies per shift, court and county records show. Signed to a four-year contract that paid $100,000 annually, he performed about 650 autopsies in 1993 alone, more than twice the maximum workload recommended by the National Association of Medical Examiners.
It didn't take long for problems to surface with the accuracy and precision of his work.
In early 1993, Gill ruled that Dylan Petroff, a 17-month-old boy, had died from a blood infection. A second autopsy conducted by a leading specialist hired by Petroff's parents, however, came to a different conclusion.
Petroff had strangled, the specialist determined, caught in the slats of a defective crib at the uncertified day care center run by his babysitter.
Pam Faught, Dylan's grandmother, said she was shocked that Gill continued to be entrusted with death investigations.
"They don't tell the next person that's going to hire him how unqualified this individual really is," she said. "And he's got 'doctor' in front of his name."
A year later, 6-month-old Julian Dorsey ended up on Gill's table. The doctor ruled the infant was a homicide victim, shaken to death by his father. But Gill's finding was reversed by his boss. There was no physical evidence that the child had sustained a brain injury.
Gill's drinking also became an issue over the course of his tenure in Indianapolis.
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