posted on Jul, 6 2006 @ 10:22 AM
Snowmass colorado is a rural resort location that is practically empty during the summer months.
There are hundreds of luxury cabins in the area that are uninhabited during the summer. Whole neighborhoods lie vacant, with perhaps a security check
here and there by an owner or a security company.
The wealtheir the cabin, the more isolated it is from the neighbors (and potential witnesses).
All you need in order to be dead is a death certificate.
The county medical examiner writes a certificate when he is shown a dead body, and is "satisfied" that the body is that of the person in
question.
In rural areas, the ME is frequently a County Judge. In really remote areas (like mountain valleys and resort areas) the ME is frequently a city
magistrate or justice of the peace who has sworn to keep good records.
The ME is hardly ever either in law enforcement or a doctor or paramedic (to keep THEM from committing murder). The M.E. is merely a third party who
probably wasn't already present at the scene of death, but will testify that this is in fact the person purported to be dead.
As a LEO, I often explained a crime scene to the M.E., pointed out the evident cause of death, etc. Only once have I had an M.E. order an autopsy
when the cops and paramedics said the cause of death was natural---and that M.E. did it because the widow said she planned to sue a caregiver for
malpractice. The M.E. did it as a favor to her, because she couldn't afford a private autopsy to further her lawsuit.
Ken Lay, while the possessor of an infamous name, is not a person most American could pick out of a police line up. (Unlike say, Martha Stewart) Can
you give me a description of him, right now? Fat, white, balding old dude with a shyster's grin? Yeah, right; there's only two or three men
fitting that description all the ski resorts of colorado . . . . I was actually describing Dick Cheney, or Ken Starr.
My point is, in Snowmass, you probably have a non-medically trained ME (who is a politician, not a cop or doctor), few witnesses, and a lot of rural
roads in and out.
Of course, if he was taken to a hospital, then the doctor probably did the paperwork. Once the paper is filled out, the body is released to a
funeral home, or whoever has a letter from the family to pick up the body, and says they are from a funeral home.
The county clerk's office should have a receipt for the death certificate in the public record. Probably cost $2.50 to photocopy it so you could
post it on this thread. . . . Heck, a person could phone the Pitkin County Clerk's office in Aspen, and ask for the "Line entry number" in
the clerk's log. That staffer wouldn't be lying. If (s)he said they'd seen the original certificate, I'd trust 'em. . . . but if they couldn't
or wouldn't give me a line number, an official entry in the clerk's record . . .
Basically, If I was an old white guy whose name was infamous, but whose face was unkown, and I were purported to be dead, I could stay in a friends
cabin until october, when all the tourists start to show . . . see, friends could stay in a neighboring cabin, and carry groceries throught the woods
for a couple hundred yards up to where I was staying, and there'd never be a stranger to see me, or a record that my friends were up in the
mountains. . . .
.
[edit on 6-7-2006 by dr_strangecraft]