Autopsy of a flawed career

TheStar.com - News - Autopsy of a flawed career Pathologist became `bigger than his role,' lawyer says

April 20, 2007
Isabel Teotonio Staff reporter

World-renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Charles Smith spent decades building a stellar career out of the unenviable task of examining the broken, bruised bodies of dead children.

Smith's passion for both his job and for children proved a powerful combination that made him one of Canada's undisputed experts in determining when and how children died under suspicious circumstances.

But some say his career began to slump when he crossed the line from scientist to crusader and his objectivity narrowed to tunnel vision. The results, they say, were botched autopsies and shoddy work that implicated innocent people.

"He was certainly on a crusade," recalled lawyer Jim Hauraney, who represented Brenda Waudby, charged with killing her 21-month-old daughter, Jenna, in 1997 on the basis of Smith's conclusions.

"I think he became bigger than his role was. I think he became more prosecutorial," said Hauraney, adding the former pathologist at the Hospital for Sick Children lost his objectivity when reviewing the Waudby case. "He was very reluctant to give other opinions any (weight)."

The murder charge against Waudby was eventually withdrawn after medical experts disagreed with Smith's evidence. The child's babysitter was later convicted of killing Jenna.

But Waudby's wasn't the only case that raised alarm bells. In June 2005, Ontario's chief coroner Dr. Barry McLellan expressed concern over Smith's findings in several criminal cases and ordered an independent review of 45 autopsies dating back to 1991.

Yesterday, McLellan released those findings, saying the international experts had concerns in 20 of the cases and disagreed with conclusions reached in 13 cases where people were convicted of criminal offences – one of whom is still behind bars.

Smith has said he was born at the Salvation Army's Grace Hospital in Toronto and given up for adoption at three months. He spent years trying to find his biological mother, but when he finally tracked her down by phone, on her 65th birthday, she hung up on him.

Smith spent his childhood living across Canada and in Germany because his adoptive father was in the Canadian Armed Forces. He graduated from medical school at the University of Saskatchewan in 1975. He completed his training in pathology at the University of Toronto and was certified as an anatomic pathologist, someone who studies cells, tissue and organs to diagnose diseases.

In 1981, he was hired at Sick Kids where he studied tissue samples and conducted autopsies on children who had died of natural or accidental causes. Within years, he was performing autopsies on children who had met suspicious ends.

In 1991, when the coroner's office opened a special unit at the hospital to deal only with suspicious deaths of children, Smith was named the director.

In his off hours, Smith could be found on the hobby farm he shared with his wife and their two children just north of Newmarket. He also found solace in religion. In 2005, he told the Star he worshipped with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a Baptist-like group that filled him with the belief he had a purpose in life: to give answers to parents who lose babies. "I've got a thing about people who hurt children," he said.

Smith's career was already unravelling when he was reprimanded in 2002 by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons for his work on three suspicious death cases.

Smith resigned from Sick Kids in 2005 and moved to Saskatoon to accept a yearlong contract as a surgical pathologist, but was fired four months later. He was reinstated by an appeals tribunal but was unable to practise because his licence had expired.