The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner is the medical examiner's office of the government of the County of Los Angeles, California. It is located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood in Los Angeles.
History Established in its current form on December 17, 1920, by an ordinance approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the office has a history dating back to the appointment of the first county coroner in 1850. The department was previously known as both the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner and the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner.
As of 2023, it has a staff of 260, and covers 13,000 cases per year.
List of chief medical examiners The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner recognized the following individuals as its leaders in the agency's history. +NameFromToLos Angeles County Coroner (1850–1957)1Alpheus P. Hodges, M.D.185018512Rafael (Ralph) C. Guirado18523Joseph Stillman Mallard18534Thomas A. Mayes185418555 Q. A. Sneed18566James Brown Winston, M.D.18577A. Cook18588Henry A. Miles18599H. P. Swain1860186110J. S. Griffin, M.D.1862186511J. L. Smith1866186712Vincent Gelcich, M.D.1868186913Joseph Kurtz, M.D.1870187314N. P. Richardson1874187515Joseph Kurtz, M.D.1876187716J. Hannon1878187917Louis Hubert Nadeau, M.D.1879188418Andrew McFarland, M.D.1885188619J. M. Meredith1887189020William Amasa Weldon, M.D.1891189321Horace Getchell Cates, M.D.1893189522George Walter Campbell, M.D.1895189923L. T. Holland, M.D.1899190224John Henry Trout, M.D.1902190725Roy Stanley Lanterman, M.D.1907190826Calvin Hartwell1908192027F. T. Williams1920192128Frank Albert Nance1921194529Ben Harlan Brown1945195330E. A. Winstanley19531957Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner1Theodore Joslyn Curphey, M.D.195719662Thomas T. Noguchi, M.D.196619833Ronald Kornblum, M.D.19831990actingJ. Lawrence Cogan, M.D.199019924Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, M.D.199220135Mark A. Fajardo, M.D.20132016actingChristopher Rogers, M.D.20176 Jonathan R. Lucas, M.D.20172022interimOdey C. Ukpo, M.D., M.S.2022202372023present
Former administrative roles Director (office abolished)1Ilona Lewis199019932Anthony T. Hernandez19932012interimLakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, M.D.20122013
Recent chief medical examiners
Mark A. Fajardo On July 9, 2010, the Board of Supervisors approved the appointment of Mark A. Fajardo, the Chief Forensic Pathologist at Riverside County, as the Medical Examiner-Coroner, at an annual salary of $275,000. He formally replaced Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, who served 2 years as the Coroner, in August 2013.
Mark Fajardo resigned in March 2016. A news report indicated that "he left because it became common to have up to 50 bodies waiting to be processed and the backlog of bodies was 'nuts'. ... and toxicology tests were taking six months to complete" due to inadequate staffing. Fajardo's predecessor, Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, was re-appointed on an interim basis on April 11, 2016.
Jonathan R. Lucas Jonathan R. Lucas was appointed as the Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner on July 10, 2017. Lucas announced his intent to leave DMEC in September 2022.
Odey C. Ukpo On November 4, 2022, Odey C. Ukpo, Medical Director of the Department, was sworn in as Interim Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner. Upko received his medical degree from Loyola University Chicago. Ukpo is the first African American to serve as Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner since the office was established in 1850. Ukpo joined the Department in 2014 and served as a Senior Deputy Medical Examiner before being named Medical Director in June 2022. On March 7, 2023, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors appointed Odey C. Ukpo as Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner. Ukpo's office handled the death of television star Matthew Perry.
Ukpo has urged greater transparency in cases involving celebrities, citing cases where the records of the medical examiner's office has been sealed by the Los Angeles Police Department. He cited two cases where this has been done such as the deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife, and the death of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.
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