'Reaper Wear' Sold From Morgue

Jan 30, 11:34 PM

Less stylish and more foreboding than the typical Gap, the Allegheny County morgue nonetheless has something in common with the ubiquitous mall retailer.

Both have their own clothing lines.

Testimony during the second day of former Coroner Cyril H. Wecht's public corruption trial revealed deputy coroners conceived and peddled from their workplace a variety of novelty T-shirts they dubbed "Reaper Wear."

Sold out of two morgue lockers and available in several death- related designs, the shirts were used by defense attorney Jerry McDevitt to try to discredit Ed Strimlan, the prosecution's first witness.

Strimlan, the chief investigator for the Medical Examiner's Office, worked for Wecht from 1996 until the coroner's indictment and resignation in January 2006.

Wecht, 76, of Squirrel Hill faces 41 charges, including wire fraud, mail fraud and the theft of honest services, in using county workers and equipment for tasks relating to his private pathology business.

Strimlan testified Monday that coroner's office employees often ran errands known as "Wecht Details." The tasks typically involved driving Wecht and his relatives to various locales, picking up Wecht's mail and occasionally exchanging theater tickets.

Strimlan said he once delivered hot dogs in a coroner's van to a political event for Wecht's son, Common Pleas Judge David Wecht.

Strimlan acknowledged under cross-examination yesterday that federal investigators were aware that he mingled a private business with his public job. He said he has been given no indication he might face criminal charges.

Asked by McDevitt if he has done the same things that Wecht is accused of doing, Strimlan said, "I don't know how to answer that."

Strimlan said that with the consent of Chief Deputy Coroner Joseph Dominick, he and about a half-dozen other employees sold Reaper Wear out of the morgue for a few years.

Strimlan said he made several hundred dollars from the venture.

Available for $15, the shirt designs included:

A chalk-like outline of a body, similar to the outline of a crime scene victim.

A picture of the Grim Reaper with the words, "When your day ends, our day begins."

Another chalk outline design with the slogan, "Chalk: It does a body good."

When Wecht was indicted, Strimlan said Reaper Wear designers considered producing a shirt with Wecht's name on the front and the number 84 on the back -- the number of criminal charges he initially faced before prosecutors dropped 43 counts. That design never made it to production.

Although sale of the shirts from the morgue stopped about a year ago, Strimlan did not indicate whether the clothing line was permanently discontinued or if the shirts are available at other outlets.

McDevitt asked Strimlan about the hot dogs, attempting to correct the perceived notion "that there was something unsanitary about putting them in a coroner's van."

Noting that Strimlan testified that he was upset he wasn't offered a hot dog upon their delivery, McDevitt asked, "They weren't just thrown in the back with a bunch of corpses, were they?"

"No," Strimlan said. "They were in a bag, plastic or paper."

(c) 2008 Tribune-Review/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved. 'Reaper Wear' Sold From Morgue
Back to Current Headlines