Medical Examiner S Office

A defense pathologist challenged the findings of the chief medical examiner's office yesterday in the second day of a macabre trial stemming from the discovery of a mummified corpse in an Essex home last year.Patricia Thomas, 51, is charged with homicide in the death of a disabled woman who checked herself out of a nursing home to move in with Thomas and her family. The body of Marion V. Cusimano, 66, was found decomposing in a bedroom by police last year after Thomas' husband called to report Cusimano's death 14 months after it occurred.

The caregiver for an elderly woman left dead in an Essex home for nearly a year was charged yesterday with first-degree murder in a case that appears to be without recent precedent in Baltimore County.Patricia F. Thomas, 50, was also indicted for abuse of a vulnerable adult and grand theft from both the victim, Marion V. Cusimano, 66, and from the Social Security Administration, which issued her retirement checks.The indictments, returned by a Baltimore County grand jury, came after a monthlong investigation by the state medical examiner's office revealed that Cusimano died from malnutrition and failure to receive medical care for her multiple sclerosis.

A State Highway Administration surveyor found a decomposed body in woods off Route 216 in Scaggsville yesterday that may have been there for weeks, Howard County police said.Some clothing was found on the body, but police were unable to determine the cause of death, the person's identity, race, age or sex, said Sgt. Steven Keller, a police spokesman. Crime lab officers combed the scene west of Interstate 95 for much of the morning.An autopsy by the state medical examiner's office will provide police with more details, including how long the body was in the woods.

BOSTON -- The Massachusetts state medical examiner's office confirmed yesterday that Reggie Lewis, who died last week of cardiac arrest, had extensive scar tissue in his heart, a finding other specialists said is consistent with the potentially serious heart defect diag- nosed by two of the three medical teams that Lewis had consulted.The Boston Celtics captain collapsed while shooting baskets at a Brandeis University gym July 27 and was pronounced dead 2 1/2 hours later at Waltham/Weston Hospital.

An 11-month-old baby who died in November expired after ingesting "a massive amount" of cocaine -- the first time, police believe, that an infant in Baltimore has died from an overdose of an illegal drug.After receiving a toxicology report on Tikia Shannon Smallwood-Patterson yesterday, police ruled her death Nov. 12 a homicide.Assistant State's Attorney Timothy Doory said that no one knows whether Tikia discovered the cocaine on her own in her mother's apartment at Lafayette Courts, located in the 100 block of Colvin Street, or was given the lethal dosage intentionally.

FREDERICK - Police investigating the death of a Hood College senior said yesterday that they believe it is not suspicious, although they are awaiting a report from the state medical examiner's office. "There is no foul play whatsoever," Lt. Thomas Chase, a Frederick city police spokesman, said of the death of Rebecca Sullivan, a senior from Landing, N.J. Her body was found in her dormitory room Wednesday after she failed to appear in class that morning and was reported missing by her professor, college officials said.

Three months have passed and authorities say they are still reviewing investigators' reports into the death of 16-year-old Nita Milak.The popular junior at John Carroll School in Bel Air was found Nov. 25 on a remote stretch of Wilkinson Road in Level, face down in a pool of blood on the roadway. Police at first thought she was a victim in a traffic accident but quickly labeled the death as "suspicious."The victim's 1990 Jeep Wagoneer was about 60 feet away from where she was found, backed up against a tree.

BALTIMORE Man on watch list to stay in custody until transfer A Pakistani man whose name is listed in a terrorism-related database will remain in custody until his transfer to New York, a federal court judge in Baltimore ruled yesterday. Muhammad Asif Haider, 27, of New York City was arrested Sunday on immigration fraud charges after a traffic stop in Baltimore County. Yesterday in U.S. District Court, his defense attorney, assistant federal public defender Jeffrey E. Risberg, did not object to prosecutors' request to hold Haider until he appears in court in New York, where the charges against him were filed.

A 24-year-old man was shot early yesterday in East Baltimore and died minutes later at Johns Hopkins Hospital, city police reported. Police detectives also were investigating a fatal shooting early Wednesday in Southeast Baltimore, and a death in March that was ruled a homicide this week by the state medical examiner's office. The latest slaying victim was identified as Tyrone Robert Hutchins of the 700 block of N. Lakewood Ave. He was gunned down shortly before 1 a.m. yesterday in the 2200 block of Jefferson St., police said.

LOS ANGELES -- The dead still outnumber the living at the county morgue, but that may not hold true forever if sales keep booming at the gift shop.The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office handles 19,000 bodies and serves 1,000 living customers a year browsing for such articles as a $20 beach towel emblazoned with a chalk outline of a body.Talked up from People to Playboy, the shop called Skeletons in the Closet has expanded to an office with a full-time staff of one and has sold the rights to market its name in Japan, where homicide in America plays as a dime-store novelty.