Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner
When the San Jose Mercury News decided to produce the podcast the reporter contacted the medical examiner that conducted Joshua’s autopsy, more information about the good doctor is at the bottom of this page. He no longer works for Santa Clara County Medical Examiner Office but for the reporter he was able enter the Medical Examiner Office and went into their records department and turned over information he took from Joshua’s file to the reporter, a 30 year old cold case Murder Investigation and he breezed in and out !!! I was furious that the reporter Julia Prodis Sulek and this doctor would do this and compromise the investigation even more then it already had been by the Sheriff Office. What this doctor did at the time of Joshua’s death and again at this time of illegally entering the Medical Examiners office was in my mind criminal. I smacked the DA and Medical Examiner’s Office and demanded that they secure Joshua’s file . . Guess what I heard back.. JFS . . Nothing about this in the DA’s closing letter to me either.
The Medical Examiner-Coroner’s office is located at
850 Thornton Way, San Jose, California 95128
Joseph O’Hara M.D.
Forensic Pathologist, Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner OfficeSan Jose, California (San Francisco Bay Area)
Administrative Staff – During 2014 Investigation into Joshua’s death
- Chief Medical Examiner – Dr. Michelle Jorden
After our meeting with Sheriff Smith in 2008 where we learned of the child death review board’s action to review Joshua death in 1990 I left that meeting wanting more information but the Sheriff’s Office nor the Attorney Generals Office was willing to check into such autopsy information so I approached the Medical Examiners Office requesting that they review Joshua’s autopsy records, I was ignored many times so I kept placing my request before them. When they decided to stop ignoring me this is what I received.
- “Mark.Eastus@sheriff.sccgov.org” <Mark.Eastus@sheriff.sccgov.org>
To: kpatkins@att.net
Cc: joseph.o’hara@mec.sccgov.org
Sent: Fri, May 4, 2012 10:54:28 AM
Subject: Joshua Klaver - Ms.Atkins, Joshua Klaver’s case will not be reopened by the Santa Clara Medical
Examiner-Coroner’s Office. The Attorney General’s Office had conducted an investigation many years ago in your son’s death and subsequently closed the case. Please do not send any additional correspondence to the MedicalExaminer’s as they are very busy and will not respond to future emails from
you. - Thank you.Captain EastusCaptain Mark Eastus
Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office
My Response ~
Subject: Kathy Atkins
Date: Sat, 05 May 2012 11:18:32 -0400
From: Kathy Atkins
To: Mark.Eastus@sheriff.sccgov.org
Captain Eastus, I contacted the Attorney General’s Office asking for
the records from the full investigation you said they had, I asked Ms
Harris if her Office told the Santa Clara County Coroner’s Office that
they conducted a Full investigation into my son’s death, what I think I will find is the information you gave the Coroner’s Office was directly from the Santa Clara County Sheriff Department and not the Attorney General’s Office. If I find this to be true you will have a huge issue on your lap and I will be in contacted with Mr O’Hara once again. The Coroner’s Office could have sent me a run of the mill rejection of request letter and I would have added that letter to my file, I would have felt disappointed but I have been refused investigation since long before Joshua died, but because of my views of the Sheriff Dept you felt a need to deal with me personally, mistake on your part, now I feel a need to follow through on your bullshit email, enjoy your weekend Captain Eastus. . Kathy Atkins
Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner
Administrative Staff – During 2014 Investigation into Joshua’s death
- Chief Medical Examiner – Dr. Michelle Jorden
- Interim Chief Investigator – Rosa Vega
- Assistant Administrative Director –
Medical Examiners
- Dr. Joseph O’Hara
- Dr. Michelle Jorden, Neuropathologist
- Dr. Mehdi Koolaee
In 2014 when the new investigation opened I learned from the Medical Examiner that Joshua’s autopsy was done without the rope. Without the death weapon – It was never collected as part of crime scene control. They did nothing but remove Joshua’s body from the barn where he died by hanging in a blink, as if a light turned on in the country side and turn off quickly after. He died in the part of the barn where there were butcher racks attached to the rafters used for his fathers business of butchering livestock and wildlife. This is where Joshua was hanging.
The autopsy report states that Joshua had bruises on his shoulder and his knees were covered with abrasions. We were very clear to the Sheriff’s Department that Joshua did Not have these injuries on him before he was taken from our home. The Medical Examiner did not check under his nails for defensive transfer evidence nor did their investigation team go to barn at all !! . . .Did they check to see if Joshua’s footprints were on the dusty folding chair that was stored in the barn KW claimed Joshua used . . NO !!! His body had bruises and his knees were covered in abrasions and the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department who knew about the past abuse transported Joshua to the Medical’s Examiners Office without the rope or the child abuse information.
Dr. Michelle Jorden has been employed in Santa Clara County as a Medical Examiner and Neuropathologist since 2008 and is currently the Chief Medical Examiner. She obtained her medical degree from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. She performed 6 additional years of postgraduate training to include residency and fellowships in Anatomic pathology, Surgical Pathology and Neuropathology at Stanford University Medical Center, CA and a fellowship in forensic pathology at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office in Chicago, IL. Dr. Jorden has been a Medical Examiner since 2005 and is board certified through the American Board of Pathology in anatomic pathology, neuropathology and forensic pathology. She maintains her board certification and participates in maintenance of certification (MOC) through the American Board of Pathology. Dr. Jorden also is Chair of the Child Death Review Team, a diplomate of the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators (ABDMI), a member of the Child Abuse Council for Santa Clara County and a member of the Domestic Violence Death Review Team.
As Dr Jorden and Captain Frank Zacharisen of the Santa Clara Country Sheriff’s Department conducted their reenactment of Joshua’s death scene in the barn on the property their report states they used investigation records to set the scene for this reenactment. .. And the only past investigation records are from (under sheriff) Sheriff Smith’s limited fact finding mission to fill out the report for the Child Death Review in 1990 and even after telling us in 1990 that the Sheriff’s Office believed KW had more to do with Joshua’s death then 1st thought they still filled out the report of the scene the night Joshua died using information from KW Klaver, his father and his abuser. For me this reenactment was more than worthless, It was disrespectful and a insult to Joshua’s sweet self and the justice he deserves by Santa Clara County and the State Of California . ..
Passage from the Medical Examiner’s document posted in Closing DA letter / Child Death Review link > Review of the Medical Examiner-Coroner materials necessitated the need to revisit the barn where the death occurred and perform a scene reenactment < In the DA’s new investigation rejection letter they talk about the investigation records from the Sheriff’s Office they relied on to conduct their reenactment, This tells me the need for Dr Jordan to go to the barn meant that the Sheriff Office didn’t have any useful investigation information in their records either. Dr Jorden placed Joshua’s death before the Child death review Board in 2014 for the second time.
REPORT – Not included in the above statistics is the review of a 25-year-old case of a suicide involving a young adolescent who hanged himself at his father’s residence. Dr. Michelle Jorden was asked to review this case and completed a review of the autopsy report, autopsy photographs, and investigative reports. She also returned to the scene and conducted a scene investigation and re-enactment using the investigative reports. Remarkably, the scene was minimally disturbed years later and allowed for a thorough re-investigation. An entire CDRT meeting was devoted to the review of this case, and the CDRT concluded the case was a suicidal death but the team also concluded the young boy was a victim of child abuse. . . . .Joshua’s justice was a update to the California Database adding the abuse to his death.
The Medical Examiner-Coroner’s office – Assistant Medical Examiner DR. PARVIZ PAKDAMAN — January 1989
THIS IS THE ASSISTANT MEDICAL EXAMINER THAT CONDUCTED JOSHUA’S AUTOPSY IN 1989 WITHOUT THE ROPE – WITHOUT CHECKING UNDER HIS NAILS FOR DEFENSIVE RESIDUE AND HAD NO CONCERN OF THE BRUISES AND ABRASIONS ACROSS JOSHUA’S KNEES – DR. PARVIZ PAKDAMAN – I found this article on line about the good doctor who performed Joshua’s autopsy without of the rope or any investigation records.
Choosing Death : There are Books on How to Do It, Notes that Explain Why It was Done, but Even the New Suicidologists Can’t Explain the Impulse to End It All.
Article about DR. PARVIZ PAKDAMAN ( Joshua’s autopsty examiner )
Choosing Death : There are Books on How to Do It, Notes that Explain Why It was Done, but Even the New Suicidologists Can’t Explain the Impulse to End It All.
October 13, 1991 – San Francisco writer Tom McNichol’s work has appeared in the Washington Post Magazine, Spy, In Health and on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”
. . .
“I know,” the counselor sighs. “I just hope I don’t read about this in the paper tomorrow.” ( I’m not sure what the counselor means by that )
For several minutes, there is only glum silence in the room–and a kind of end-of-land sadness.
DR. PARVIZ PAKDAMAN REACHES into a file cabinet and pulls out a bulging manila folder six inches thick. The folder lands on the desk with a thud that sounds conspicuously hollow–or is that just because I know the file is jammed with suicide notes?
“I acquired these from a colleague who had been collecting them for several years,” explains Pakdaman, a medical examiner for Santa Clara County coroner’s office. “This is just a partial file; there’s more that I haven’t had the chance to include yet. I was interested in seeing if they’d shed any light on why people kill themselves. Some of them go on for pages and pages.”
It’s hard to make too many generalizations about the notes in Pakdaman’s folder; some are long and disjointed, others are as succinct and lucid as any letter. The shortest note in the collection is only nine words and reads like some sort of mad Haiku: