Frank Sheridan - Direct/Cross/Redirect

DR. SHERIDAN: I do.

DR. SHERIDAN: Good morning.

DR. SHERIDAN: Very well.

DR. SHERIDAN: It should be. All right, thank you.

DR. SHERIDAN: My first name is Frank, and the last name is Sheridan — S-H-E-R-I-D-A-N.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yeah, I noticed that. Okay.

DR. SHERIDAN: I'm a physician, and my specialty is forensic pathology and neuropathology, but most of my career has been primarily forensic pathology.

DR. SHERIDAN: Nothing. I'm retired.

DR. SHERIDAN: I was the chief medical examiner for San Bernardino County, California, and I was in that position from 1991 until 2017. That's when I retired from that position, but I stayed on on a part-time basis for another few years to help out, because the office was understaffed. But a few years ago — 2021 or '22, I've lost track of the time — I finally stopped altogether.

DR. SHERIDAN: I'll pull myself closer to it, I guess. Okay. Is that better?

DR. SHERIDAN: I was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and I had all my initial education there, including primary school, secondary school, and then premedical school. The university I was at was University College Dublin, Ireland, which is part of the National University of Ireland system. So I did my premed and medical school training there, and I graduated from medical school in 1971. Then after that I did a one-year rotating internship, as it's called, of medicine, surgery, and some psychiatry as well. That was a requirement for all doctors for licensure. So that's basically my initial education. [unintelligible — CV reference]

DR. SHERIDAN: Well, in the years after medical school I wasn't in training anymore — I was working in Africa, actually, as a medical officer. And that wasn't training, that was a job. And I was there for three years in central Africa, and I was a general medical officer with various duties that included some teaching, but also seeing patients. So I did that for basically three years. I then returned to Ireland, and I — — spent the next two years — by the way, the years I'm about to mention are 1976 to '78, so I was back in my home country, Ireland — and I spent those two years doing research and lecturing in pharmacology. Pharmacology is the study of drugs and how they act in the body. And I did that back at the same university where I had originally trained for medical school.

DR. SHERIDAN: So then in 1978 I came to the United States, initially to the University of Oregon, and I spent the next almost three years doing research there and lecturing in the field of genetics. It was during the time I was there that I decided to do forensic pathology. So starting in — let me think for a second — 1982, I then had to start what's called a residency program in pathology. And the first part of that — the first year of that — was at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Southern California. I then had to interrupt my residency training and I had to go and work in family practice for a year.

DR. SHERIDAN: This was because I was going through the immigration system of the United States, and they required that people in my position work for a year in family practice in a manpower shortage area — as they designated it, an area where there weren't enough doctors. So I did that in a place called Yucca Valley, California. But then after that year I returned to the residency program and continued on at Loma Linda University Medical Center. And this training was in what's called anatomic pathology, which in a way you can think of it as general pathology. It involved autopsies, it involved surgical pathology — looking at slides from surgery — it involved a few other things as well. And so I was doing that there at Loma Linda.

DR. SHERIDAN: Then from '86 to '88 I went to LA County USC, which stands for University of Southern California — so LA County USC, as it's generally known — for two years of training in neuropathology, neuropathology being disease and injury of the brain, spinal cord, and so forth. So that was from '86 to '88. And then in 1988 I went to the coroner's office — as it was then called; it's now a sheriff-coroner's office — but at that time it was a coroner's office, and in San Bernardino I did my one-year required training in forensic pathology there. When I finished that year I stayed on at the same office, and then in 1991 I was appointed chief medical examiner for the county. And as I mentioned earlier, I was in that position up until 2017.

DR. SHERIDAN: And I'm board certified in anatomic pathology — which I mentioned before is general pathology, in a sense — also neuropathology, as I mentioned, about the brain and spinal cord primarily, and then finally forensic pathology.

DR. SHERIDAN: I am, yes. And that's in anatomic pathology, neuropathology, and forensic pathology. That's correct, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes —

DR. SHERIDAN: I'm sorry. It's hard to hear back here. Okay. I'm sorry. Yes, I still do some teaching, actually. First of all, I'm on the staff of Loma Linda University Medical Center, the place where I did my initial training, and I give lectures on a regular basis there to the pathology residents, like I used to be myself. Then in addition to that, for a long time — for about 20 years, actually, up until COVID — I was also giving an annual — well, no, actually twice-a-year — courses on forensics at University of California Riverside Extension, as it's called. And I did that for, as I said, essentially 20 years, I think. But that stopped with COVID, so I haven't been doing that since the beginning of the COVID epidemic.

DR. SHERIDAN: I've also given annual — not lectures, but courses; three-day courses — to the California Criminalistics Institute, which is part of the forensic system in California. And then in addition to that, I was associated with another university for a while, but that sort of gradually lapsed. And that's basically it. I give occasional lectures — well, actually at least once a year — at various other places, just individual lectures. I'm a visiting lecturer, in other words. And at community colleges and even high schools, actually.

DR. SHERIDAN: And then I forgot to mention one more thing: for two — for two different years, I mean — I was a visiting professor at a university in China, in what's called [unintelligible] — I don't know if I pronounce it correctly even to this day, but [unintelligible] — it's a big city in China, anyway. And I was there for two different years, giving courses on forensic pathology.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes. I've been a member — although I've let it lapse recently, intentionally — but I've been a member of the National Association of Medical Examiners for many years. I'm also a member of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, and also the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. I'm also a member of that.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes, but not recently. When I was working it was too busy to publish, but yes, I did author a few papers earlier on in my career. One of which — it wasn't really neuropathology, but it was neurology; more than — well, it was actually neuropharmacology. And then I did author another paper that was related to my forensic pathology work on organ and tissue donation for transplantation. Those are the two main ones, but there were a couple of other lesser papers.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes. As chief medical examiner I had some administrative — responsibilities — really not too many — because there were other people to do it. But most of my responsibility there was supervising the medical part of the coroner's office, in other words the autopsy section, and I was supervising other pathologists, but I was also working full-time doing autopsies myself, so I spent most of my time actually performing autopsies. But I did have, as I said, some administrative sort of roles, and the role of supervising colleagues, and of course as a medical examiner, as a forensic pathologist, I frequently had to testify in court, rather like I'm doing now. So that was another part of my duty.

DR. SHERIDAN: It's between 12 and 13,000. I think it's closer to 13,000.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes, yes — over 400 times.

DR. SHERIDAN: Over 400.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes, I did. I reviewed quite a lot of materials.

DR. SHERIDAN: Okay. I reviewed the autopsy report on this case. Along with that, there was the neuropathology report, which was separate. There was a toxicology report. There were autopsy photographs. These were all of primary importance to me, all these things. Then I also reviewed the complaint in this case — outlining, in other words, the basic details of the case. I reviewed photographs taken at the scene, a scene of death, of Mr. O'Keefe. Photographs of the vehicle that was allegedly involved in his death. Photographs of the decedent himself, before the autopsy, while he was at the hospital at Good Samaritan Hospital. Then there was also some videos of the scene of death. I also saw the death certificate, a document by [unintelligible], police reports from Canton Police Department.

DR. SHERIDAN: Am I missing anything out?

DR. SHERIDAN: Yeah.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes, yes it is.

DR. SHERIDAN: These injuries that you're looking at here on the arm are abrasions, which are friction injuries, basically. We classify them under the general category of blunt force injury, but these particular ones are abrasions — the abrasions being where the outer layer of the skin, the epidermis as it's called, has been scraped off. These are friction injuries, essentially.

DR. SHERIDAN: These injuries were sustained before death. We call them antemortem — antemortem meaning before death — and that's based primarily on their color, and you have to take other things into consideration, but that's the basics of it. If these had been postmortem, they would have a more yellowish-orange color, usually yellow.

DR. SHERIDAN: I'm doing my best. My voice is not as strong as—

DR. SHERIDAN: I would say, generally, no—

DR. SHERIDAN: Well, over 100.

DR. SHERIDAN: Well, if you take motor vehicle accidents in general, they'd be probably nearly a quarter of my total number of autopsies — so in other words, that would be close to 3,000. Yeah, that's about right.

DR. SHERIDAN: I can answer. Yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: Okay. The question — to be precise, can you just rephrase it? I mean, I said yes, I can answer, but I can't remember exactly how you phrased it.

DR. SHERIDAN: If you mean struck in that part of the body, on the arm — directly — I would say no, it doesn't look like that at all.

DR. SHERIDAN: Well, if you're hit by a vehicle — or whichever part of your body is hit — if it's a significant impact at all, you're going to get bruising, and we don't have any bruising here. We just have linear — what I would call linear abrasions — without any bruising. So that does not look to me at all remotely like an impact from a motor vehicle.

DR. SHERIDAN: As I just said a second ago, primarily a lot of bruising, and that's what we don't see here. You might see — well, depending on the circumstances, you might see other things like fractures — but you would at least expect bruising.

DR. SHERIDAN: Animal attacks in general? Yes, quite a few, actually — well, when I say quite a few, it's not an enormously common event, but I've done probably at least a dozen or so involving deaths where an animal was involved one way or another.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes, I have, a few.

DR. SHERIDAN: Well, I'd have to just refresh my memory out of the blue here. But first of all, I had a number of cases — three or four, I think, over the years — involving children who were killed by feral dogs, and the dogs attacked the kids and killed them, so I had that a few times. But then I've also had cases where an animal — a dog, particularly — was involved but wasn't the actual cause of death, so to speak, but they were involved in something that was happening and left some traces of their activity in the form of bite marks or scratch marks.

DR. SHERIDAN: Are they consistent with an animal attack? I would say they are, yes. I'm not 100% sure about this, but my initial reaction when I saw this photograph was that it was probably an animal mark, and most likely I would say a dog — scrape marks with the paw, and possibly also a bite mark from the teeth as well, possibly. I'm not 100% sure. I didn't get a chance to analyze it right there on the spot, so to speak, but my basic impression is that these were consistent with marks caused by, say, a dog using his paws or claws, if you want to put it that way, and possibly the teeth as well.

DR. SHERIDAN: I don't — I don't see one.

DR. SHERIDAN: Actually, in a sense they're all consistent with scratch marks in the sort of more generic sense — whether it's the paws or the teeth, they're going across the skin rather than going straight into it. So they're all generally consistent with, if you want to call them, scratch marks. So I don't know if this will work on the screen, but you've got — basically got what it looks like — there's one pair there, with possibly a third one in the middle. There are two very clear parallel marks there, with another one fainter in the center. Then you have, going closer to the elbow, you've got another two or three — whichever way you look at that.

DR. SHERIDAN: At the elbow itself, that part of the elbow there is what I would think is the most likely candidate here for a bite mark, because it has something of the configuration of the outline of teeth. And then the ones on the forearm are a little bit less obvious, but they're still consistent in general with — I would say — claw marks, and/or maybe from the teeth.

DR. SHERIDAN: You could. There'd be other factors involved — it would depend on a lot of things — but it's possible, yeah.

DR. SHERIDAN: To the head? Yes, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: Well, there were a few minor injuries on the face, but the major injury — and indeed the main cause of death — was an impact to the back of the head, slightly to the right of the midline at the back of the head, and where there was a laceration. A laceration is another type of blunt force trauma, but a laceration is where the skin is actually opened up, or it's split, so you get bleeding from a laceration. So there was a laceration, as I said, in the back of the scalp, in what's called the occipital area, and beneath that, when the skin was moved away as part of the autopsy, there was extensive bruising — hemorrhage, in other words — in the scalp.

DR. SHERIDAN: At that same point there was a fracture that started at that point in the skull but traveled all the way forward to the frontal areas of the skull. So you have the impact — the impact site is clear, because as I said, you've got the laceration, that's where the impact was. So you have that, the impact at the scalp there, and the skull fractures. Then the brain itself had significant injuries. First of all, there was bleeding on the surface of the brain, and that's very common in situations like this.

DR. SHERIDAN: But in addition to that, there were extensive bruises — contusions is the real word, actually, but they are essentially bruises — of the brain substance itself, and they were in several different parts of the brain, including the frontal areas, which are near the forehead, and also the temporal, which are towards the side more or less. And then there was also hemorrhage deep inside the brain, in the ventricles, which are open areas in the center of the brain. All of these things were described in the neuropathology report, and you can see them in the photographs that were part of the neuropathology report as well as the autopsy.

DR. SHERIDAN: As a result of the injury to the brain, the brain began to swell — and that's what it usually does after major trauma — and as a result of the swelling, you had what's called herniation, where the brain — if you want to think of it this way — the brain is trying to expand but it can't, because the skull is around it, so it begins to put pressure, pushing especially downwards towards the top of the spinal cord. And eventually, as happened in this case — and it's quite clear from the photographs — the brain herniated downwards. The brain stem, particularly, herniated downwards, and this would have been the final straw, so to speak. That's what would lead to respiratory failure and death. So this was a fatal injury, for certain.

DR. SHERIDAN: Once this injury occurred — once this impact occurred — Mr. O'Keefe would have been unconscious. He would still be capable of breathing for a while, until that brain swelling took over and pushed the brain stem down. But he would immediately — immediately, from the point of impact — he would have been unconscious for sure.

DR. SHERIDAN: No. He would have been unconscious completely.

DR. SHERIDAN: I'm sorry, I didn't quite get the question.

DR. SHERIDAN: No, I don't think so. If there's a fall involved here — and there could be — it would be onto a hard surface. The grass — and as I understand from all the material I reviewed, there was also some snow — so that might even cushion the impact even a little bit more. But even even without the snow, grass is basically too soft for somebody falling and hitting their head on it to get the injuries I've just described.

DR. SHERIDAN: Well, as you put it there, it's a rather general question. But when you're doing an autopsy, you obviously want to see what is there and what's not, and everything can be relevant, including absences and things. Now, in this particular case, there are a number of features — things that are absent — that are important. I've already alluded to one, and that is on the arm: if that was an impact from a vehicle, I would expect bruising. Do you want me to continue?

DR. SHERIDAN: But if Mr. O'Keefe was struck — it depends, obviously, on what part of the body is theoretically involved. But if a vehicle hits you, whether it's the back of the vehicle or the front, you're going to have — as long as it's not going extremely slowly, if it's going at any speed at all, any significant speed — it's going to cause at

DR. SHERIDAN: No idea, and it's been a lot. When I've done — I said earlier that between — well over 12, maybe 13,000 total autopsies. Of those, I'm only giving you estimates here, but over a thousand would have been homicides. Of those, probably maybe a fifth, or about 200, would have involved blunt force trauma — instead of, for example, a firearm or something like that. And in those cases — and of course, yeah, okay — so all of those, and other cases involving sharp force — homicides involving sharp force — may also have evidence of a struggle as well. So it's in the hundreds.

DR. SHERIDAN: In a general sense, they can be — they could be, yes. He had — I alluded to it just briefly before — but the head injury, the major head injury I've described — but he also had a laceration over his right eyelid. He had some scrape marks on his face. He also had some bruises on the back of his right hand, which — that kind of injury on the hands can be what we call a defensive injury — in other words, an injury that occurs when you're protecting yourself and you're hit either with another fist or with a hard object and you're protecting yourself. So I would say that some of these findings I've just mentioned are consistent with the possibility of a physical altercation, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: Good morning.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes. I forgot to mention the knee, but yes, there were injuries in those places, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: I did not perform it myself, no.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yeah, I'm going by the photographs and the autopsy report, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: Look at — whose medical records?

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes, I looked at the medical records from Good Samaritan Hospital where he was pronounced dead, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: I did look at those, yeah. I thought I mentioned it earlier — maybe I forgot.

DR. SHERIDAN: To his left arm? No, I don't think so. No.

DR. SHERIDAN: No.

DR. SHERIDAN: That's correct.

DR. SHERIDAN: That's correct, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: I did, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: I do. I do agree with her, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: I did, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes — that there were photographs taken during the neuropathology examination which provided independent confirmation for me of the things described in the report, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: No, right. Not.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes, in a general way. I mean, as I mentioned, I think when I was answering the question about the cases I've done involving animals, I tried to divide them into two groups, because there's an important difference. Some of those cases were cases where the animals were responsible for the death itself — as I said, a pack of feral dogs, in one case particularly that I remember; another was a case where it wasn't a whole bunch of them, but there were two large dogs, and they killed the victim's children. So those individuals had multiple injuries, including deep bite marks that were fatal, particularly in the neck area.

DR. SHERIDAN: But they also had — I'm stretching my memory a bit because it's a while since I did these cases — but I do have a general recollection that in at least those cases, in addition to the fatal injuries there were also some non-fatal — so things like puncture marks — and I can't remember the distribution on the body.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yeah, those are the ones where the animals caused the death, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: I'm sorry, I couldn't hear the last —

DR. SHERIDAN: Oh, antemortem — well, actually, in one of them, in one of the cases that comes to mind, the marks appeared to be postmortem. And that was — this person was actually a homicide victim, and they were lying outdoors, and their own dog — this was, according to police who came on the scene when they arrived — there was a dog that turned out to be the victim's own dog, was pawing at the body. And the person was dead. But in another case that I can think of, the scratch marks from dog paws were antemortem, and they were confined to one place only. I'm trying to remember what part of the body — this case I had to testify later on — yeah, in this case that I'm thinking of now, the paw marks were limited to just one location.

DR. SHERIDAN: I can't remember exactly where they were, whether it was the leg or the arm. I can't remember.

DR. SHERIDAN: No — in the second case, it was antemortem. So in other words, there's been both postmortem and antemortem, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes, basically the posterior.

DR. SHERIDAN: That's correct, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: Correct. That's correct, yeah.

DR. SHERIDAN: That's correct. I can't.

DR. SHERIDAN: No. But if I had to try —

DR. SHERIDAN: No, I can't. I can't say anything about the breed.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yeah, I have no idea.

DR. SHERIDAN: Correct — only that they were when he was still alive, yeah. But other than that, no. And they are fresh looking — I mean, generally they look like they happened very shortly before — and when you say "short time," we're talking about hours? Minutes to hours, I would say. Minutes to hours. But you can't — I mean, I'm talking just based on the injuries themselves alone, leaving anything else out — you can't time injuries as exactly as you might think from CSI or one of these television programs. But they are generally fresh, for sure. And just looking at those on their own, I would have to say minutes to hours.

DR. SHERIDAN: I'm not sure in relation to what.

DR. SHERIDAN: I'm not sure that I remember that, no.

DR. SHERIDAN: I wasn't aware of that. I must have missed it.

DR. SHERIDAN: I'm sorry, I don't think I understood that question.

DR. SHERIDAN: Am I aware that there was a dog there? Yes, I was informed of that.

DR. SHERIDAN: No, I didn't know that.

DR. SHERIDAN: No, I don't believe it was, sir.

DR. SHERIDAN: I didn't write a report as such, but I signed a declaration early on in my involvement in this case.

DR. SHERIDAN: Sorry, what did you say about that? When you're talking about a declaration, you're referring to an affidavit that you filed with the court under pains and penalties of perjury in January of 2023? I didn't think it was January, but however — I thought it was only one, so — whatever, whatever you have.

DR. SHERIDAN: That found Mr. O'Keefe's — what?

DR. SHERIDAN: I don't remember that specifically.

DR. SHERIDAN: Like I said, I don't remember that particular part.

DR. SHERIDAN: I was asked — I asked about that myself, but I think the answer I got was no.

DR. SHERIDAN: No, I don't remember that.

DR. SHERIDAN: You talk about a hair sample now? Yeah — no, I didn't, I didn't have that.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes. Mm-hmm.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes, I did.

DR. SHERIDAN: I did, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: I can't — I remember seeing the pictures of the glass fragments, but that's — I don't remember any more specifics than that.

DR. SHERIDAN: What, compression abrasion? Yeah, although it's not a term we use all the time, but — yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yeah. You have to have some lateral movement as well to get an abrasion.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yeah, they're mostly the front. Mostly it's pedestrians crossing the street or standing in the street and then struck by the front of a vehicle. Correct. Yeah — I think they were all — I have actually done a couple of cases where children were hit by the back of a reversing vehicle. This was in the days before they had the rear videos on cars that they have now. But those cases were impact against the back of the vehicle. But most pedestrian cases here are, as you say, the front of the vehicle hitting the person.

DR. SHERIDAN: I remember reading that, yeah.

DR. SHERIDAN: It varies a lot from one case to another. Sometimes you get — virtually no information about the accident, because some of these cases I've done — some of them were witnessed and some weren't, let's put it that way. Yeah. So when they weren't witnessed, and when the person was just found later or sometime afterwards, you wouldn't have necessarily any — the vehicle would typically not be there. These would be hit-and-run type situations. And so in those cases you wouldn't have all that kind of information. So it varies.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yeah, absolutely. But like I said, in those unwitnessed cases of pedestrians, I might be given the information that it's probably a pedestrian fatal from a car.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yeah, could be. That can have a big effect on how the body reacts to the impact.

DR. SHERIDAN: Most of them were, yeah. I mean, the ones that involved being backed over, and they were children — I can't remember the exact distribution of their injuries, except the vehicle went right over them. I do remember that. But anyway, the answer to your question — maybe — my mind is wandering. Can you ask me again?

DR. SHERIDAN: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: That's right, yeah.

DR. SHERIDAN: I — can you remember any? Not off the top of my head. No.

DR. SHERIDAN: Well, it depends on the exact position of the victim at the moment of impact. And of course it could be a lot of different things — the victim could be facing the vehicle, they could be sideways on, they could have their back — but you're going to see bruising somewhere in that area, in one of those areas, either on the back, the side, whatever, or the front. I would expect to see bruising, significant bruising.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes, but I'd expect bruising for sure. I mean, whether you get fractures and so forth — and for that matter internal injuries — depends on the variety of factors. But you're going to get bruising for sure.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes. Small — small bruising. It looked like two, possibly three, almost confluent or close together bruises.

DR. SHERIDAN: I seem to remember that, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: That I don't remember.

DR. SHERIDAN: You mean on different occasions? As far as — there are multiple abrasions, as you've termed them.

DR. SHERIDAN: I think that's the most likely explanation for these, yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: It's more than once. When I had the laser— [cut off] pointer here -- I think I pointed to roughly what -- one, two, three, four different areas. So it looks like -- and you have -- maybe there's an additional -- the ones on the lower forearm, on the forearm I should say, are harder to figure out. But it looks like four, maybe five separate -- four or five separate sort of swipes, whether they be with mouth or claws or whatever.

DR. SHERIDAN: They don't look remotely like that to me.

DR. SHERIDAN: In my opinion, no.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: No. I mean, even if there was a small coating of ice, I wouldn't change my opinion based on that, no.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes, you could.

DR. SHERIDAN: If all that happened, yes. And onto asphalt or something like that, yes. If that's indeed what happened -- but for other reasons, I don't think that is what happened.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: The skull injury, rather than the brain injury, which leads to the bleeding of the brain, which then leads to the swelling -- well, yeah, but no -- I mean, let's be clear about this. I mentioned the fractures earlier on that came from the back and went all the way towards the front of the skull, including what are called the orbital plates, which are the bones -- the parts of the frontal bone that are right over the eye sockets. And those -- the bone there is very delicate, it's the thinnest part of the skull anyway. The photographs and the autopsy report clearly show that the fracture involved that on each side -- both orbital plates.

DR. SHERIDAN: And it's that fracture -- it's not the brain itself, but it's that fracture which leads to the bleeding that causes the black eyes, if you want to call them that. And as far as your review of the medical records -- you reviewed the autopsy report, photographs, things that you observed -- nothing as far as fractures to Mr. O'Keefe's eye sockets, correct? Well, the orbital plates in the sense are part of the eye sockets, but they're the upper -- the roof.

DR. SHERIDAN: There were no fractures that appeared to be coming from the front.

DR. SHERIDAN: I didn't see broken blood vessels --

DR. SHERIDAN: Oh, the eye. Yeah. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear -- just couldn't hear what you said. Yeah, no. As far as I know, the eyes were clear.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: The eyelid laceration -- don't forget -- is in the same area where you have the other injury, and it's a little bit hard to figure out whether -- how much hemorrhage, how much of that black eye could even be from -- related to the -- -- laceration, because you've got two possible explanations for the black eyes: one is the skull fracture I've already mentioned, but that doesn't rule out his getting an impact as well on the front. But I can't -- there's no way you can separate them.

DR. SHERIDAN: No. Well, the main one that I was relating to when I spoke about the altercation question was the laceration on the eyelid. That's not related to the head injury that we've been discussing, so it's a separate injury, and it is from a some kind of blow to the front.

DR. SHERIDAN: If it was indeed a laceration as it was described, then no -- because lacerations by definition -- although this is a term that's often misused, by the way, even by some doctors -- a laceration by definition is an open wound caused by blunt force, not sharp force.

DR. SHERIDAN: I find that hard to imagine. I find that very hard to even conceive.

DR. SHERIDAN: No.

DR. SHERIDAN: I don't know. I mean, but I heard there was an animal somewhere around the place -- a dog, I think.

DR. SHERIDAN: No. I wasn't there, obviously. And all I can say is what I've already said. But I don't know any more than that.

DR. SHERIDAN: Not that I'm aware of, no.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes. I've seen this photograph before.

DR. SHERIDAN: It shows the deceased's knees taken from the right side, but you can see both knees.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes.

DR. SHERIDAN: Yes. This has been mentioned before. It's an abrasion, and that's the extent of the injury to Mr. O'Keefe -- correct. Yeah, that's it, yeah, in that area.

DR. SHERIDAN: Very well. Thank you.