8299: Doctor performs second autopsy on preacher's remains (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Doctor performs second autopsy on preacher's remains

By Ellis Berger
Miami Bureau
Posted June 9 2001

MIAMI · An independent pathologist -- hired by the high-profile Stuart law 
firm of Willie Gary -- performed a second autopsy Friday on the remains of 
Marc Dorvil, the part-time Baptist preacher who died last month while in the 
custody of North Bay Village police.

Dr. Ronald Reeves of Ormand Beach performed the autopsy in the morgue of the 
Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner's Office, where Dorvil's remains have 
been kept since he died May 14, bound hand and foot in the back seat of a 
police cruiser.

Office spokesman Larry Cameron said Reeves likely would be reviewing the 
original findings as well as performing his own examination and tests of the 
body and specimens that have been preserved.

Dorvil's widow, Sylvanie, surprised lawyers at the Miami firm of Stabinski & 
Funt this week when she notified them that she had been encouraged to hire 
Gary to represent her in a potential wrongful death suit.

"I have no idea what happened," said Luis Stabinski, "We had been talking to 
the client, and then she told us on Thursday that somebody drove her to 
Stuart."

The unusual circumstances surrounding Dorvil's death, and the subsequent 
announcement by State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle that she was 
closing her investigation because there was no evidence that police officers 
had committed a crime, triggered an hours-long protest a week ago that 
temporarily shut down the 79th Street Causeway.

The initial autopsy concluded that Dorvil's behavior and death were the 
result of a rare brain condition described as acute exhaustive mania, which 
is caused by faulty chemicals in the brain. Some community activists insist 
the condition would not have been fatal if not exacerbated by police 
mistreatment.

According to Rundle's office, Dorvil was driving west on the causeway at 
about five miles an hour when he bumped into the wall of the 
Benihanarestaurant near North Bay Village's police station. Dorvil, 48, 
ended up in a confrontation with eight of the village's police officers. 
After a struggle in which he reportedly bit some of the officers, he was 
bound with flex cuffs -- community activists say he was hog-tied -- and 
placed in the police vehicle.

Paramedics called to the scene to treat the officers say they were not told 
Dorvil also needed medical attention, even though the police later said they 
were taking him to Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Islande Solomon of the group Haitian Women of Miami, which has been 
assisting the family, said Sylvanie Dorvil "wanted somebody with expertise 
in these kinds of suits. She believes Willie Gary can handle the litigation 
in a way that will ensure a future for her and her children."



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