THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 28, 1996 TAG: 9603280361
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Faruk B. Presswalla, the sometimes controversial chief medical examiner for the Tidewater District for 20 years, will retire in June.
He will be replaced by Elizabeth Kinnison, who is working in the Richmond medical examiner's office, according to Marcella F. Fierro, the state's chief medical examiner. Presswalla could not be reached for comment.
Presswalla, who turns 55 this year, chose to retire to make a career change, Fierro said. She said the native of Bombay, India, will be missed.
``He's been an important person in the medical examiner's system,'' Fierro said. ``He's highly thought of and highly regarded by both prosecutors and defenders and law enforcement agencies.
``He enjoys a high degree of public confidence,'' she said.
Presswalla also is no stranger to public controversy. He has been a critic of how the state's medical examiner's offices are run.
As a forensic pathologist, Presswalla often helped police and law enforcement officials solve sudden, unexpected or violent deaths. As a ``medical detective,'' he helped determine cause and manner of deaths, collected evidence and reconstructed injuries.
Presswalla has helped police solve thousands of deaths during his career. The medical examiner's Tidewater district covers the Eastern Shore, and extends from Hampton Roads to Sussex County to the west and York County to the north.
This is not the first time Presswalla has said he would step down.
In 1989, he quit to protest a lack of staff pay raises. The flap was resolved and he withdrew his resignation before it took effect.
He also thought about leaving the department in 1994 after battling Gov.-elect George Allen over Allen's request for all the state medical examiners to resign. During that time, while serving a temporary 15-month stint as chief state medical examiner, he applied for the post. The job went to Fierro, a move some regarded as a snub of Presswalla.
Presswalla said at the time he did not oppose the selection, but the way he was informed of the decision. What followed was a series of heated memos between him and Fierro, long-time colleagues. The result, Presswalla said, was a feeling he had been more than slighted. However, he chose to stay.
Presswalla worked for London's Scotland Yard and for New York City before coming to Norfolk in 1976.
Two years later he became the center of attention over an alleged racially motivated wounding case.
The case involved Richard Lapchick, a professor at Virginia Wesleyan College, who also was national chairman of a group combating racial injustice in sports and apartheid in South Africa.
Lapchick, who is white, said two masked white men visited him at his campus office and called him a ``nigger-lover.'' Lapchick said the men beat him and carved the misspelled word ``NIGER'' on his abdomen with a pair of scissors.
After answering police's request for help, Presswalla ruled the wounds were self-inflicted. His ruling sparked an international uproar with many celebrities and doctors challenging the rulings. It never was resolved, although Presswalla defended himself throughout.
Presswalla ended up battling then-Attorney General Marshall Coleman, who accused Presswalla of overstepping his domain by examining a live victim. ILLUSTRATION: Faruk B. Presswalla, 55, has announced before that he's leaving
the post.
by CNB