LITTLE ROCK — Someone recently asked my opinion of Arkansas' former chief medical examiner, Dr. Fahmy Malak.
Malak, a forensic pathologist, left that office in 1991 amid controversy over his handling of a number of cases, including his grossly incomplete postmortem on Janie Ward of Marshall.
A naturalized American citizen who was born and raised in Egypt, he spoke clear although slightly broken English. I actually met and came to know Malak in 1982 shortly after his arrival in Arkansas. I was editor of the Hot Spring Sentinel-Record. In my initial dealings with him, he struck me as basically honest, capable and idealistic.
Malak strove to clean up the scandal-ridden office he'd inherited from Dr. Stephen Marx, who had departed for Texas in 1981. In one case I examined, Marx had not documented a bullet hole in "drowning" victim Millicent Lynn's head. In another case, Marx had wrongly ruled that prison inmate Richard Fuller had died of a heart infection rather than from a broken neck.
Malak's insecurities became increasingly evident as his workload increased, which it did tremendously. I believe he felt defensively self-conscious about his heritage, even when giving expert testimony in court.
After two investigations into the medical examiner's office and the state Crime Lab, I think I had a fairly insightful grasp of what had been transpiring there over the years. What I'd found was two deeply politicized agencies geared toward supporting official versions rather than independent fact-finding.
It didn't help that these agencies answered to a gubernatorially appointed board consisting largely of prosecution and law enforcement representatives. Malak told me of receiving calls from board members informing him that his findings were unpopular.
As Malak became more and more politicized within the system, I believe, his work as a medical examiner and his own sense of integrity and professional ethics began to reflect that state of mind. I still don't think his resulting professional problems, which began making scandalous state and national headlines, stemmed entirely from his lack of technical expertise any more than I think they represented his succumbing to the pressures of trying to serve the system and meet its expectations.
Conditions steadily devolved into what Malak's predecessor had experienced, and his abilities and the results of at least a dozen of his rulings came intoquestion. He was transferred from the medical examiner's position to the Health Department's communicable diseases division. I'm convinced that this career-salvaging transfer was a political favor from then-Gov. Bill Clinton's office to maintain Malak's eligibility for state retirement.
At last report, about 15 years ago, the offer of a medical examiner's post in Guam had been withdrawn because of his notoriety in Arkansas, although more recently I've heard that he may be living in Florida.
On Nov. 27, 1989, 11 weeks after Janie's death, Malak met in his office with her father, Ron Ward, and Robert Stewart of Marshall. They were there to discuss Malak's autopsy findings in the case. On Aug. 11, 1991, Stewart, a retired Air Force master sergeant, wrote and signed anotarized statement about what was said in their discussion with Malak.
"Dr. Malak invited [me and] Mr. Ward into his office to . . . explain his findings," it said in part. ". . . His explanations went as follows: The cause of death . . . was a fracture of the second vertebrae when the head was snapped back with sufficient force to cause the fracture, then was forced forward with enough force to cause the skull to separate from the spinal column.
"He further stated that there was no evidence of sexual intercourse and that there were no drugs in her system with the exception of alcohol in the amount of approximately one drink of one beer. He also stated in the autopsy report that the manner in which these injuries were sustained should be investigated."
Malak didn't mention in such detail the fracture and separation in his official autopsy report. Instead, he referred vaguely to an "upper spinal cord and neck injury." However, an obvious spinalseparation was exactly what Janie's parents and a newspaper reporter had been shown on a lateral X-ray taken at the state Crime Lab and affixed with the medical examiner's tag.
However, that important Xray later would be replaced by the Crime Lab with a blurred photocopied version, minusthe medical examiner's tag, in which the entire neck region was blanked out by a white mass.
I think Malak was genuinely trying to please the Wards by giving them the basic truth about their daughter's death while also hinting that her injuries, not to mention this entire stinking case, deserved a thorough investigation.
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Staff columnist Mike Masterson is the former editor of three Arkansas daily newspapers.
Editorial, Pages 17 on 08/09/2007