Not long after I met Wieslawa Tlomak, chief medical examiner of the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office, she told me, “The rewarding part of this job is being able to provide families with answers about how their loved ones died.” It is a simple statement, but the work behind it is anything but simple.
The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office deals with death in some of its most sudden and painful forms including homicides, suicides, fatal accidents, overdoses, poisonings, unattended deaths and deaths that occur in police custody or in jail or prison. In many of these cases, an autopsy is necessary to determine how and why someone died.
For the grieving families left behind, that analysis can be difficult to hear. But the results can also bring answers to an episode that may otherwise remain filled with questions…