Drudge Report

From: drudge@drudgereport.com (DRUDGE REPORT)
To: DRUDGE@drudgereport.com
Date: 97-12-03 15:46:19 EST

XXXXX Drudge Report Final XXXXX Tues Dec 02 1997 22:45 EST XXXXX
Air Force Lt Colonel: Evidence Raises Serious Questions in Ron Borwn Death

Newspaper Report Starts Commotion

A US Air Force Lt. Colonel has told investigative reporter Chris Ruddy in Wednesday's Pittsburg Tribune-Review: Secretary Ron Brown was found with an "apparent gunshot wound" to his head.

In Ruddy's report: According to Lt. Col. Steve Cogswell, a doctor and deputy Armed Forces medical examiner with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, and once member of the Brown plane crash investigation, officials who examined Brown's body at Dover Air Force base shortly after the April 3, 1996 Croatia crash discovered "essentially... Brown had a .45 inch inwardly beveling circular hole in the top of head, which is... the description of a .45-caliber gunshot wound." The wound was documented, photographed, and X-rayed, in a medical examination at Dover Air Force base, writes Ruddy.

The Tribune-Review is in possession of numerous crash, medical examination and other photos that purport to show Brown, the Drudge Report can confirm. One photo, to be published in the paper, shows a hole consistent with a .45 caliber gunshot wound, it will be alleged. Cogswell claims that one photo-X-ray even shows a possible "lead snowstorm" of metal fragments in Brown's head.

Cogswell tells Ruddy, on the record, for full attribution, that incriminating X-rays were destroyed shortly after the examination of Brown, disappearing from the case file. Ruddy backs up Cogswell's claims with other sources present at Dover, as well as independent experts who have examined photos of the body and photos of the X-rays.

"Even if you safely assumed accidental plane crash, when you got something that appears to be a homicide, that should bring everything to a screeching halt," Cogswell said, arguing that the finding of the apparent gunshot should have triggered the Presidential Assassination Statute - which covers Cabinet members like Brown - and immediately prompted an autopsy. Ruddy reveals in his detail drenched story that no autopsy was conducted on Brown.