Medical examiner under scrutiny after findings overturned in New River cases

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Medical examiner under scrutiny after findings overturned in New River cases

A former assistant chief medical examiner’s findings have been overturned by follow-up autopsies in two New River Valley murder cases.

Posted: Wednesday, February 25, 2015 10:00 pm

By Cameron Austin [e-mail] 381-8621

CHRISTIANSBURG — It’s been almost eight years since former Western Virginia Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Dr. William Massello performed an autopsy in Virginia. But his autopsy reports continue to play a major role in cases in the region and now, for the second time in the past several months, his work is being questioned in a New River Valley murder case.

In September in Pulaski County, a first-degree murder charge was dropped against Leslie Dickerson in the 2005 death of his former wife Mindy Dickerson because a judge ruled that brain tissue from an autopsy Massello conducted had become so contaminated that it could not be ruled admissible in court. In that case, Massello ruled that Mindy Dickerson died of encephalitis.

Later, two other autopsies sought by Mindy Dickerson’s family – one done by the former Chief Medical Examiner for Virginia Marcella Fierro and another by Western Virginia Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Amy Tharp — both came to a different conclusion about her death.

On Friday, in another case, a judge is scheduled to hear a motion to dismiss a first-degree murder charge in Montgomery County against Mark “Ward” Faville Jr. He is charged in the death of his wife, Anne “Mickey” Faville — a beloved fifth-grade teacher at G.W. Carver Elementary School in Salem.