Cyril Wecht

Cyril Harrison Wecht (born March 20, 1931) is an American forensic pathologist.

He has been the president of both the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the American College of Legal Medicine, and headed the board of trustees of the American Board of Legal Medicine.

Wecht served as County Commissioner and Allegheny County Coroner and Medical Examiner, serving the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.

He is perhaps best known for his criticism of the Warren Commission's findings concerning the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Wecht was born to Jewish immigrant parents in a tiny mining village in Dunkard Township, Pennsylvania, called Bobtown.

His father, Nathan Wecht, was a Lithuanian-born storekeeper; his Ukrainian-born mother, Fannie Rubenstein, was a homemaker and helped out in the store.

When Wecht was young, Nathan moved the family first to McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, and then to the Hill District neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and opened a neighborhood grocery store.

He attended and graduated from the now closed Fifth Avenue High School in Pittsburgh.

Wecht had musical leanings and was concertmaster of the University of Pittsburgh Orchestra during his undergraduate years.

He earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1952, an M.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1956, a Bachelor of Law from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1962, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Maryland School of Law.

In 1959, he served in the United States Air Force at the Air Force Hospital, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, where he became a captain in the medical corps.

He became a forensic pathologist.

Since 1962, Wecht has had a private practice.

He has served as a medical-legal and forensic pathology consultant in both civil and criminal cases.

He served on the staff of St. Francis Hospital in Pittsburgh before becoming Deputy Coroner of Allegheny County in 1965.

Four years later he was elected coroner.

In 1965, Wecht presented a paper critiquing the Warren Commission to the meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

In 1965, Wecht became Deputy Coroner of Allegheny County.

Four years later he was elected Coroner of Allegheny County.

Wecht served as coroner from 1970 to 1980, and again from 1996 to 2006.

Wecht became famous appearing on television and consulting on deaths with a high media profile.

Some of the cases include; Robert F. Kennedy, Sharon Tate, Brian Jones, the Symbionese Liberation Army shootout, John F. Kennedy, the Legionnaires' Disease outbreak, Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, JonBenét Ramsey, Dr. Herman Tarnower (the Scarsdale diet guru), Danielle Van Dam, Sunny von Bülow, the Branch Davidian incident, Vincent Foster, Laci Peterson, Daniel and Anna Nicole Smith, and Rebecca Zahau.

During his career, Wecht performed more than 17,000 autopsies.

He is a clinical professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and an adjunct professor of law at Duquesne University.

Wecht served as coroner from 1970 to 1980.

His initial departure from the office of Coroner was not met without controversy.

Wecht did not resign as Coroner until January 9, two days after his swearing-in as an Allegheny County Commissioner, as the law did not prohibit him from holding both the offices of Coroner and Commissioner.

He resigned under pressure from a variety of sources, including his predecessor as Coroner, Dr. Ralph Stalter, a Republican, and the administration of Governor Dick Thornburgh, also a Republican.

In 1972, Wecht was the first civilian ever given permission to examine the Kennedy assassination evidence.

It was Wecht who first discovered that Kennedy's brain, and all related data in the killing, had gone missing.

In 1978, he testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations as the lone dissenter on a nine-member forensic pathology panel re-examining the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which had concurred with the Warren Commission conclusions and single bullet theory.

Out of the four official examinations into the Kennedy assassination, Wecht is the only forensic pathologist who has disagreed with the conclusion that both the single bullet theory and Kennedy's head wounds are mutually consistent.

Wecht was a consultant to Oliver Stone for the film JFK.

Wecht was hired by Callenders and Co, a Bahamian law firm, to do an independent autopsy on the body of Daniel Smith, the son of Anna Nicole Smith, who died while visiting his mother in the Bahamas.

Wecht attested that Daniel Smith died as a result of the interaction of methadone, sertraline (Zoloft) and escitalopram (Lexapro).

Wecht has frequently been an expert witness in legal cases; he testified at the 1997 criminal trial of police officers Milton Mulholland and Michael Albert in the killing of Jonny Gammage; the 2000 civil trial against the State of Ohio relating to the Sam Sheppard case, the 2011 criminal trial of Jeffrey Locker in the death of Jeffrey Locker, and the 2018 wrongful death trial arising from the Death of Rebecca Zahau.

His forensic consultant engagements include:

In 2000, the Duquesne University School of Law established the Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law.

The Institute offers graduate degree and professional certificate programs in forensic science to a diverse group of students spanning the disciplines of law, nursing, law enforcement, pharmacy, the health sciences, business, the environmental sciences and psychology.

Wecht has written numerous books, including: