
It sounds a little strange to say, but in Los Angeles Dr. Thomas Noguchi is a legend. He’s certainly worked on plenty of legends, too. If you’re not familiar with his work, you’re forgiven and you certainly don’t want to be seen by this M.D.
Dr. Noguchi has performed countless autopsies in his career as a coroner and in a city like Los Angeles that means many a celebrity has seen the business end of his scalpel. It was Dr. Noguchi, in fact, who performed the autopsy on Marilyn Monroe. In this interview, he discusses a few of his famous cases, including the sad day he found the Queen of Hollywood lying in front of him. (He also talks about one of Marilyn’s alleged lovers, Robert Kennedy.)
Dr. Noguchi once again states that he found no needle marks on Marilyn’s body during his inspection of her. Sorry Randy Taraborelli. I told you so.
Dr. Noguchi also discusses some of the other oddities of Marilyn’s autopsy, including the fact that there were no traces of pills in her stomach and no yellow stains from Nembutal capsules—two facts that have been sticking points for many people.
It’s an interesting read but there are a couple of minor errors on the part of the reporter that should be cleared up before. First, the reporter dates Marilyn’s official date of death—and the day of her autopsy—as Sunday, August 4, 1962. That should read Sunday, August 5, 1962. Second, Marilyn was 5’ 5 1/2” tall, not 5’ 4”.