07-02-2011, 02:25 PM
I think we should start another thread on Watkins and a Dallas County Grand Jury on Tippit and JFK, and revert this thread back to the Chicago plot, which I thought was getting interesting. - BK
Rufus Shaw autopsy shows no cancer, murder-suicide questions remain
[B]10:42 AM CDT on Friday, April 4, 2008http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/040408dnmetshaw.2c718672.html
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By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
jtrahan@dallasnews.com
An autopsy report released Thursday found that Rufus Shaw had no visible signs of cancer, raising questions about his and his wife's lives prior to their murder-suicide deaths last month.
Although Mr. Shaw's autopsy showed no obvious malignancy of the prostate gland or anywhere else, Dallas County Medical Examiner Jeffrey Barnard said cancer still might have existed on a microscopic level.
"In a shooting case, we don't normally do microscopic testing," Dr. Barnard said. "It's not pertinent to the cause and manner of death."
Cancer that had been treated might also not be visible, Dr. Barnard said. "He hadn't had surgical treatment," he added. "If he had terminal cancer, we would have seen that."
Crumbling finances, looming criminal investigations and Mr. Shaw's cancer have been cited as precursors to Mr. Shaw, 56, shooting his 53-year-old wife, Lynn Flint Shaw, then killing himself March 10 in their Red Bird-area home. Mr. Shaw was a firebrand southern-sector political commentator, and his wife was a former DART board chairwoman and political operative.
Dallas police investigators have said that the scene bore no signs of a struggle, suggesting that the couple had some sort of death pact.
Ms. Shaw was arrested earlier this year on accusations that she forged Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins' signature on a document to avoid repaying a $7,500 debt to a friend. She resigned as DART chairwoman in January. Hours before they died, Mr. Watkins announced that an independent prosecutor would handle the investigation.
Bodean Slaughter, who said he has been a friend of Mr. Shaw's since middle school, said he was "totally surprised" at the lack of cancer in the autopsy findings. "Both of them told me that he had cancer and that he was getting treatment at M.D. Anderson in Houston," he said.
Although he had heard that Mr. Shaw was "getting better," he understood from conversations with the both Shaws that "the cancer thing was supposed to be obvious and evident."
"I don't know what to think," Mr. Slaughter said. "The only thing I can say is they were my friends and I was there for them."
Ms. Shaw cited her husband's failing health, described later as prostate cancer, as her the reason for her dropping out of last year's Dallas City Council race. Several public officials have said they thought that Mr. Shaw had cancer.
Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, a political rival of the Shaws, said the autopsy results didn't surprise him.
"I didn't believe any of it at the time, that there was anything wrong with him," Mr. Price said Thursday.
Toxicology tests revealed that neither of the Shaws had any drugs in their systems when they died.