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When Dr Thomas Noguchi arrived at the LA coroner’s office on a Sunday morning in August 1962, he found a note from the chief coroner. He had to conduct an urgent autopsy on a 36-year-old woman who’d died the night before.
Dr Noguchi, a newly appointed deputy coroner, noted the woman was his age…and her name was Marilyn Monroe. He told himself it couldn’t be the Hollywood star, but as he began to read the police report, he realised he was about to perform an autopsy on the world’s most famous woman.
Dr Noguchi, who became known as “the celebrity coroner” strode into the autopsy room and gently removed the sheet covering the body.
“He was momentarily paralysed with disbelief,” says Anne Choi, author of LA Coroner. “The body on the table really was Marilyn Monroe. He paused, took a deep breath and then started examining every inch of her body with a magnifying glass.”
The actress’ naked body had been found face-down on her bed at her home by her housekeeper. Marilyn’s hand was resting on a phone and her bedside table was littered with an empty bottle of sleeping pills and sedatives. The police report noted that on the day she died, Marilyn spoke to her psychiatrist, who described her as “very despondent”.
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Dr Noguchi carefully noted fresh bruises on Marilyn’s hip and lower back and a scar on her lower abdomen from a gallbladder operation. He removed and weighed organs and collected samples for toxicological testing.
But those tests didn’t go ahead as the autopsy showed Marilyn had fatal levels of sleeping tablets and sedatives in her system and her death was deemed suicide. That decision was made by someone senior in the coroner’s office, and led to conspiracy rumours.
“People can’t believe it was suicide [and] at the time there was deep suspicion about the government keeping secrets, and Marilyn had been linked to the then president, JFK,” says Anne.
“But the autopsy and psychological autopsy – where close family and friends were interviewed – reveal she was deeply troubled. She had a history of suicide attempts but someone always came and rescued her. This time, there was no rescue.”
Dr Noguchi was a pioneer in the world of forensic medicine from the late 1960s. Now 98, he changed the face of the coroner’s office. In her book, Anne explains how he focused on scientific facts to explain the cause of death – even when some of his findings of how the famous died were confronting and upsetting and saw him criticised. But he became a renowned and sometimes controversial figure.
He conducted the autopsy on Robert F Kennedy, killed by a gunman in an LA hotel in June 1968. Before starting the autopsy, he requested a minute’s respectful silence before beginning his rigorous six-hour examination that provided key evidence and saw assassin Sirhan Sirhan jailed for life.
Dr Noguchi was also on the scene of the Manson family murders in Hollywood in 1969. He performed the autopsy on victim Sharon Tate, an actress and partner of director Roman Polanski, who was eight months pregnant when she was stabbed to death by followers of psychopath Charles Manson.
FORENSIC EVIDENCE
“The forensic evidence was paramount in the Manson members trial. Dr Noguchi captured every millimetre of every knife wound but the most horrifying evidence presented was that Sharon’s baby lived for about 15 minutes after she died.”
Controversy swirled around Dr Noguchi when he commented on the autopsy of actress, Natalie Wood. The 43-year-old drowned off the Californian coast in 1981. Natalie, her husband Robert Wagner, and actor friend Christopher Walken had spent the weekend sailing.
Unfounded rumours of arguments between those on board circulated.
“During a media conference he said Natalie had drunk seven or eight glasses of champagne and that compromised her judgement and reflexes. “Frank Sinatra heard about the doctor’s comments and was outraged that he was maligning Natalie’s character. So he hand-delivered a letter of complaint to Dr Noguchi’s superiors.”
The LA Times alleged his attention to celebrity deaths was causing problems at the Chief Medical Examiners office and he was demoted from coroner to physician specialist. He later worked as a university professor and retired in 1999.
LA Coroner by Anne Soon Choi
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