World-Renowned Forensic Pathologist Cyril Wecht Dead

May 14, 2024 1:51 am

A world-renowned forensic pathologist who served Allegheny County for two decades has died. A spokesperson for the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts confirmed Cyril Wecht died on Monday. He was 93. During his time as the Allegheny County coroner, Wecht performed about 21,000 autopsies and reviewed or been consulted on 42,000 additional postmortem exams, according to a biography on Duquesne University. Some of the high-profile cases he was involved in include O.J. Simpson, Kurt Cobain, the Menendez Brothers, Scott Peterson, Chandra Levy, Elvis Presley and Jeffrey Epstein. He likewise investigated the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. He detailed his career and personal life, including his professional pitfalls and public corruption trial, in a memoir titled “The Life and Deaths of Cyril Wecht: Memoirs of America’s Most Controversial Forensic Pathologist.” Wecht held faculty positions at several Pittsburgh area schools, including the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University and Carlow University.