The problem with writing is: if you write badly, you are sure to be misunderstood; even if you write well, you can’t be sure anyone will understand you either

I’m guilty of some very bad writing, recently.

In the Dossett-Leath case, I expressed opinions about individuals without knowing all the facts. I used them as characters in a fiction that has rattled around in my mind for a long time. So, I want to apologize to everyone. Please understand me: I do not think anyone murdered Mr. Leath; I feel—based on what little I know—that he committed suicide.

I also feel there are strong parallels—and sharp contrasts—with another recent Tennessee case: that of Sharron Chason. In both instances, wives were charged with murdering their husbands after non-prescribed drugs were found in their husbands’ blood. Both women were nurses—so the implication was that they had access to such drugs.

In both cases, friends and family members of the deceased testified against the wives: their testimony was largely innuendo and impressions of the defendants’ guilty behavior. In the Dossett-Leath trial, the widow’s desire for cremation was used against her; in the Chason trial, the widow’s desire to remove life support was used against her.

In my experience, in-laws do not always like each other. In my experience, friends and family are often vitriolic against one another after someone dies. In my experience, survivors often want to spare their loved ones’ bodies further ravages by choosing cremation and choosing to stop life-support. In my experience, after a loved one dies, you act angry, secretive, combative, nasty. It isn’t evidence of murder.

In my experience, children of a deceased parent want to inherit every last scrap and don’t think it’s right that anyone else should share in the inheritance. This is especially true when the parent was divorced and remarried.

There is a big difference in the Dossett-Leath and Chason cases, though: the death certificates. In the Chason case the ME found the cause of death to be a drug reaction or overdose but the manner of death to be “undetermined.” He was honest enough to say that while the drug’s presence was suspicious (because it was not prescribed) the manner of death could have been accidental, suicide, or homicide.

In the Dossett-Leath case, the ME declared the manner of death to be homicide without waiting to gather all the facts and by ignoring other alternatives. believe that the ME’s pronouncement of homicide initiated an avalanche: everyone else involved started pointing fingers at each other, especially the widow and her stepdaughter. Thus began an angry inheritance dispute, which ended in two indictments.

I do not have any independent evidence to support my beliefs. All I’ve learned comes from the Internet and TV, and I may have misread or misheard everything.

I lay no blame with any private parties in either of these cases—the Chason and the Dossett-Leath cases.

But I do think they illustrate what’s wrong with electing prosecutors. The justice system includes not only the police and courts, it includes the states’ attorneys. Americans ought to be able to expect unbiased prosecutions. Crime is crime, no matter which political party is in power in a county or state. In both cases, I believe we saw the effects of politicizing prosecutors and medical examiners (and why coroners are a very bad idea).