Hope and justice go hand in hand, and Dr. Michael Baden gave both to some families who at one time had neither.
This renowned forensic pathologist also saved an innocent man from life behind bars.
How he did it is the latest topic. Fox Nation series “The Burden Files.''
“I've performed over 20,000 autopsies in my lifetime, and I've been asked by Congress to investigate the deaths of very famous people like President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. , more than 99 percent of my work was on lesser-known cases,” Baden told viewers.
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Fox Nation's “The Baden Files” introduces viewers to how Dr. Michael Baden used forensics to overturn a series of cases. (Fox Nation)
Baden's bid helped reignite several incidents that seemed to die down over time, including one in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
The family of suspected murder victim Eileen Gowan called in Baden to look deeper into her case after vowing to seek justice for her.
“One case took me to the Midwest to solve a puzzle-like investigation: a stolen safe, a dead body in a ditch, a lost cell phone.” Baden said.
But none of them explained what happened to Gowan. What works were helpful? It's a normal zipper.
The first episode of “The Burden Files'' focuses on that unconventional piece of evidence and how it helped uncover a devastating truth. Ms Gowan was strangled to death and her “undetermined” cause of death was changed to “homicide”.
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Eileen Gowan's daughter Nicole Schipper has vowed to find justice for her mother. (Fox Nation)
“If you look at this, you can see what happened. It's not who did it. It's up to the police,” he said, holding up a photo of the markings.
But the investigation quickly narrowed the suspects down to two people, one of whom provided some damning information.
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Mr. Baden also assisted in the case of Ellen Andros, a wife and mother. Andros' death cast the community's suspicions on her husband. An Atlantic City police officer discovered her body after returning home from a night of drinking.
As a healthy 31-year-old woman, the evidence, especially the small red spots on her face, pointed to murder. However, things were not as they seemed.
The community initially suspected that then-presumed murder victim Ellen Andros' husband was behind her death, but Dr. Baden's forensic investigation revealed otherwise. (St. Petersburg)
“Forensic pathology provides a way to speak to the dead from beyond the grave,” Professor Baden said. “And in this case, Ellen Andros had a lot to say to me.”
In this series, Dr. Baden was also involved in the investigation of the “West Memphis Three,'' a case involving three teenage boys who were arrested in 1993 on suspicion of murdering three 8-year-old Cub Scouts in West Memphis, Arkansas. It describes what happened.
Several years later, Dr. Baden became involved in the matter and he came to a conclusion that radically overturned the original forensic analysis.
“The answers are out there, you just need to know what to look for.”
