November 1966
#196611_88: A 16-year-old white male was hit by a train while walking with his girlfriend on the tracks. Amazingly, the girl survived and only suffered arm injuries. The file contained several newspaper clippings about the incident.
#196611_90: This file contained the story of an abandoned fetus found at a sewage plant on Atlantic Ave. The identity of the fetus was never determined.
#196611_94: This case file was of a suicide of an 81-year-old white male. It contained the suicide note, found on the back of an old newspaper.
#196611_121: This automobile accident file contained actual witness testimony in regards to the accident itself. A 60-year-old woman was killed. One of the few automobile accident files that actually contained any sort of documents.
#196611_163: A 4-month-old baby came down with meningitis and died. A newspaper clipping was found within the file, explaining how this was the second case in the past two weeks to hit Allegheny County.
File # 89: This file contained the story of a man who sustained a heart attack and died. What makes the file interesting is that this occurred while onboard a flight to Dayton Ohio, while the plane was still in the air. I am curious if cases like these caused defibrillators to be placed onboard planes.
February 1968
#196802_157: Undetermined cause of death. A 20-year-old black male was found with high levels of doriden in his sytem, possibly from poisoning. Lacerations were found on his hands, and he was located on the side of a highway in a ditch. The file itself contained fingerprints, head hair, pubic hair, and fingernail scrapings.
#196802_168: An accidental death: a 16-year-old boy shot himself while cleaning his rifle. Within the file was a report including a drawing showing the layout of the scene, and some discussion as to whether it was a suicide or not within the police reports.
#196802_176: A 58-year-old white female was found by a relative in her bathroom, dead for over 13 days and already somewhat decomposing. The husband apoparently knew that the woman was dead, and yet did 0o't call the police for uncertain reasons. The house was in a horrible condition, as if someone had ransacked it. The woman was found to have a gunshot wound in her side, and the spent cartridge was found underneath her body. Police later found blood all over the bedroom sheets. Yet, despite all of this, the case was ruled as accidental due to an undetermined injury. Interesting file in general, lots of various reports contained within it.
#196802_219: This file contained the accidental death of a 105-year-old woman. Beside the age of the woman and the fact that she did not die from natural causes instead of by an accidental injury in her home, nothing is remarkable about this file.
File# 164: A 2-year-old white female baby died by accidentally swallowing of six lomotil tablets that were in her home. This led to an eventual coma and death. Interestingly enough, the doctor consulted for the autopsy disagreed that the sic pills could have sent the girl into a coma and caused her eventual death.
File 191#: A 54-year-old white man died when he fell 40 feet from a steel girder. The file included witness reports on how the man attempted to hold on to the girder but fell.
June and July 1968
There were over five suicide cases of older, seventy-somethings throwing a chair through a (usually fourth floor) window in Oakland hospitals (especially Montefiore and the V.A.) and throwing themselves out to the street.
There was one unsolved case of a night watchman shot with his own hand gun in the chest, discovered by his wife and child. His wife claimed that she panicked and put the gun back in the drawer where he normally kept it.
This case file had two suicide notes. One was very specific with multiple instructions from an Egyptian/Albanian man who was just laid off from his job. He told his wife that he could not bear making her support him. It read: I’ve failed as a husband and an engineer…Empty the bank account and spend it on yourself…" The other was short and looked as though it was scrawled in blue marker at the last minute. It read: “…I have lived my life. There is no more for me. I am going to be no more…”
The news headline for the following industrial accident read: "Explosion kills laborer as drill hits blasting cap" from November 10, 1967. There was a file of pictures of the victim at the scene from the Detective Bureau (not very graphic). There were witness accounts typed on yellow legal-pad paper. Most of the file was paper work for the company and various agencies.
February 1969
A man in his fifties committed suicide by a 12 gauge shot gun. Before he killed himself, however, he rigged his wife’s room with canisters of ‘gas’ in the rafters above and below the room; he did this so that when she turned on the light the room would explode. She lived through the fire. His file included his mug shot.
A man had a fatal seizure while waiting for his turn in a bowling alley.
October 1969
#196910_46: A 12-year-old white male died of swelling of the brain due to a football related injury. The file contained several different reports done on the injury itself and determined just what caused the death.
#196910_61: Criminally induced abortion by an 18-year-old white female. It was of a 20-week-old fetus, and the case itself was considered a homicide. This was a very unique case, unlike any others I have seen from this time period.
#196910_84 &85: Both files 84 and 85 contain the reports on two women, aged 44 and 20, who were found within their house badly decomposed and dead for an undetermiend amonut of time. The house was swarming with flies, and both bodies were so decomposed that very few tests could be done on the remains. Eventually, the coroner decided that the women died of natural causes at the same time due to a genetic problem, which the file is fairly unclear on. Also, two loaded revolvers were found beside each body, but tests proved that the guns were never fired.
#196910_118: This file contained the case of a baby that died of SIDS. This was the first such case of two for these specific parents. The file contained many letters of correspondance between the woman and Dr. Cyril Wecht, as well as other various interested parties. After the second SIDS death, police began to investigate a case of abuse that spanned over a 6-year period with these two parents and various adopted children (1969-1975). Eventually this all led to a court hearing (in which the parents were aquitted), the mental collapse of the mother due to the stress, and the eventual drug use and downward spiral of the father. It is unclear what exactly happened, but some of the reports within the file have testimony from the mother saying the father smothered the children, then recanting. A truly bizarre and difficult case to read through.
November and December 1969
A young man was found in the parking lot of the YMCA. He had hooked a hose up from the tailpipe into the car and died from breathing in the fumes. He also left a letter stating that he did not wish to live in a world with so much hate and violence.
Another man at age 25 hanged himself at the local hospital. He was being treated for depression and other symptoms. The man had been saying he was going to kill himself for a while but I do not think anyone would listen to him.
A car was seen sitting near the edge of a cliff for a few hours. A couple minutes after sunrise a man in the car drove it off the cliff into the river.
Beside killing themselves all these men have another thing in common- they were all recently returned veterans of the Vietnam War. In my opinion they could not handle being back in regular civilization, which was common for al ot of men coming back from the jungles of Vietnam.
March and April 1970
There was one suicide of a mother of three very young children. She also accidentally killed her children when she put them on the second floor of her home, went to the garage, and started the car in the closed house. She was wearing a crooked red wig when they found her.
A man in his fourties from Monroeville, a manager at a retail store with a wife and children, was found by them in his cellar bathroom with his feet handcuffed. He had one hand in handcuffs that were chained around his abdomen. He was nude except for a diving suit head covering with some type of bandage over his mouth. He was kneeling, hanging from a light fixture above. His case was first called a suicide, and later an accidental death.
There was one very long, poetic suicide note from a 19-year-old man. He lost his girlfriend Cathy to a man named Rick at a party. Cathy did not know he knew about her and Rick at the time. He wrote to Cathy, “I’ve found my tomorrows.”
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