Dying Bird and Fish Mystery in Arkansas: Solved

by Andrea Campbell

It reads like some kind of horror film, reports of 3,000 (to 5,000) birds mysteriously falling out of the air and dropping dead in Beebe, Arkansas, before midnight on New Year’s Eve. The birds were said to be littering a 1.5-square-mile area, landing on homes, cars and lawns. And then 100,000 dead drum fish are found floating and washing up on the Arkansas River banks near Ozark. It’s some kind of staging for a movie right?

No Film Trickery

Unfortunately, this is not in preparation for a movie, and the residents near the river are being advised by authorities not to eat the dead fish. Uh, yeah, okay—who was even thinking that?

Here we are, welcoming in the new year when thousands of red-wing blackbirds take a dive from the sky in Beebe, and then more than 100 miles away the fish are belly up along a 20-mile stretch. But the Arkansas Game & Fish authorities claimed the deaths weren’t related.

Bebee Residents Sing Bye-Bye Blackbird

Over the holiday weekend, crews arrived suited up in their protective

gear wearing gas masks and gloves, picking up the carcasses. Apparently, blackbird roosts in Beebe are a nuisance because of ankle-to-knee-deep bird droppings in some areas, so the residents aren’t keen on their habits. Ten years ago, wildlife officials lobbed blanks from both shotguns and  a cannon to disturb a roost of thousands, but the black-winged birds decided to come home again.

Scary Elsewhere Too

Arkansas is not the only state getting the same weird vibe. Two million dead fish were found in Maryland along the Chesapeake Bay. They were identified as adult spot and juvenile croakers. Environmental officials there claim the bay area temperatures were colder than usual and, although this fish kill was large, it’s not the biggest; 15 million succumbed to “cold water stress” in 1976.

Louisiana birds took some headlines, too, when 500 of their birds decorated a quarter-mile stretch of highway in Pointe Coupee Parish, close to Baton Rouge. The dead there were identified as starlings and more red-winged blackbirds. It’s not looking good for the ed-winged blackbird, I guess. Biologists there are sending the carcasses off to laboratories in Wisconsin and Georgia for testing. In 1999, an estimated 3,000 birds hit the ground in northern Louisiana in a place called Morehouse Parish. It was discovered that those birds died from an E. coli infection located in the air sacs in their skulls.

Not Scary?

No one really sounds alarmed, and scientists say that large numbers of bird deaths are not uncommon. I know that makes us all feel better, right? A website set up by the U.S. Geological Service has a map that shows mass deaths of birds and other wildlife from June through December. Five of the sites list deaths of at least 1,000 birds and many others count as high as 500.

Authority Comments

Some comments from Arkansas officials are that the birds may have been hit by lightning or were stressed out by fireworks displays. Now the fish story is more problematic, as they say that fish kills this size are rare. Many of the fish have been sent to the University of Arkansas for examination and testing. The associate director of the University’s Aquaculture and Fisheries Center was quoted as saying, "It's your classic boom and bust. A group of fish will go into a population boom, and then they're competing for food, so they may not be in really good condition. Then during a cold snap the environment changes with the temperature, and their immune systems are compromised and can't always fight infection." He temporarily ruled out a pollutant because only the drum fish were affected. Keith Stephens of the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission told CNN he agreed and that “… if it was from a pollutant, it would have affected all of the fish, not just drum fish."

Interesting Factoids

There have been some interesting comments batted around over this event, and one comes from Karen Rowe, an ornithologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. She said birds often become confused and just drop to earth. It seems that blackbirds have poor eyesight, and if they get startled, they fly into the ground.

Fireworks, Poison, Bad Weather, What?

After all the supposition, it appears now that the birds succumbed to a thunderstorm aftermath. After being ripped from their nighttime roosts, they got waterlogged and died from exposure. A tornado blew through the state and killed three people in Cincinnati, Arkansas, so experts think it may have been related. It seems birds get knocked around from lightning, hail and storm updrafts often enough.

The most recent testing results, released Wednesday by the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, show that red-winged blackbirds died from blunt force trauma on New Year's Eve. The report supports preliminary findings from the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission released Monday.

As far as the fish, well, disease is the cause. An unnamed state official said that it’s not unusual. Since there is no further data on that, I am suggesting that no one around there order fish for dinner.

Bird photo courtesy of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/STEPHEN B. THORNTON.

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Arkansas Bombing Case & Verdict—For Now

by Andrea Campbell 

It is unusual that an individual is involved in a bombing, especially in Arkansas. A case that has captured the attention of crime followers nationally, this one has some strange elements to it.

It Begins

This story starts with an investigation, but one with another objective — sanctioning doctors. The Arkansas State Medical Board was looking into the conduct of a licensed physician in northern Arkansas named Dr. Randeep Mann. Mann, it was purported, had over-prescribed medications that resulted in the deaths of 10 of his patients.

The Board

The state medical board is made up of 14 members. This post is a governor-appointed position, and 11 of the members are doctors. This group oversees Arkansas’s 5,763 active licensed physicians.

The Agreement

In 2001, the medical board received some complaints about how Mann prescribed medication. Mann, nearing his fifties, specialized in internal medicine at Skyline Medical Clinic in Russellville, and several of his patients overdosed. There was also an alleged claim of sex for drugs by one of the overdose victims, plus several other female patients felt threatened. These and other infractions comprised a 22-page report. When two more patients died, the board issued an Emergency Order of Suspension and Notice of Hearing in July 2003.

The Sanction

Mann was never stripped of his medical license, but his prescription-writing privileges were revoked. He had prescribed methadone for the treatment of addiction despite not having the proper credentials, and he had violated other regulations in regards to amphetamines and methamphetamines. Originally the board was going to annul his license for five years. Instead, the board decided that if he surrendered his federal DEA permit to prescribe controlled substances for at least a year, got education on how to prescribe them, and paid a $9,500 fine for investigative expenses, that would be his punishment.

Soon after, the board agreed to reinstate him within a year, in July 2004, and many people thought that was unconscionable. Phillip Milligan, a Fort Smith attorney who represents survivors in one of two malpractice lawsuits against Mann, says, “If the medical board would have pulled his license the first time, instead of making a deal with him, that would have saved some lives.”

More Allegations

Just a couple months after Mann’s license was restored to an “unlimited and unencumbered” status, more patients started overdosing. Kevin Allen Curry, 43, went to Mann in 2005 for facial pain, and it is surmised he wound up dying from mixed drug intoxication. According to another report, Dr. George Richison told investigators that he treated several of Mann’s patients for overdoses when they arrived in the emergency room at St. Mary’s Regional in Russellville.

The medical board finally issued an emergency order suspending Mann’s license, and by April 2006, eight deaths were blamed on Mann’s negligence. His surrendered his certificate to prescribe, but his medical license was still intact.

The Story Continues

The loss of his drug-prescribing privileges caused Dr. Randeep Mann to go off the deep end. Naturally he lost patients who required pain management. He mounted a letter writing campaign explaining the difficulties this caused him and his practice. He had run into financial difficulties and wondered whether the board could help him find a job with a physician group. He claimed the military disqualified him from any jobs there, and the letters expressed desperation. He wrote: "This has not only involved my professional life, but my personal life as well. To be working less than a full schedule has been the hardest feat for me to endure since my graduation from medical school in December of 1980."

Board Denial
Then: a bomb set to kill the chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board, Dr. Trent Pierce, went off as he was getting into his Lexus (below left) at his West Memphis home on the morning of February 4, 2009. Pierce survived, but with serious injury. Pierce had approached his car and went to move a spare tire that was leaning up against it. Moving the tire triggered an explosion that caused facial injuries and blindness in one eye. Reports are that Pierce's face is still dotted with shards of black rubber that were driven into his skin by the explosion.

Investigation

Police interviewed Mann within hours. Then, in March, police officers searched Mann’s home and found a large collection of weapons including grenade launchers and 98 grenades buried in his yard, and inside, in gun safes, 110 semi- and fully automatic firearms -- of which just two were unregistered. Mann, a federal firearms dealer, was arrested and charged with unregistered firearms, illegal possession of the grenades and a machine gun, and other crimes, but the main charge was using a weapon of mass destruction against Pierce.

Trial

Mann was recently convicted by a federal jury of the bomb attack against Pierce. Prosecutors painted a picture of a man who was embittered by the board's continual sanctions. But the forensic evidence was slight.

Forensics

The crime scene materials were tested. There was a spare tire, a hand grenade, duct tape—and the grenade, duct-taped to the tire was rigged to blow when some string pulled the pin. But nothing matched items in Mann’s home, and the three fingerprints found belonged to an FBI agent.

Prosecutors did present an email that Mann had sent to his brother in India. The word “Pierce” was in the subject line, the body of the message contained a photo of Pierce, and the note said, “I hope this picture is good.” Mann also had a friend and business partner who owned a Nissan Altima that was missing its spare tire — the same type of tire as was found with the bomb itself. That, witness testimony about Mann’s anger, and the military-grade weapons finally convinced jurors.

Oddly enough, Mann was found guilty of orchestrating the bombing, but the investigation as to who set the bomb continues. Mann could be sentenced to life in prison. His attorneys are filing an appeal.

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The Airport Evidence are Heads

by Andrea Campbell

I always hate it when Arkansas has some strange news story ongoing. The state has a not so great redneck stigma to overcome, as many states in the South often do. But this is just, well, darn weird y’all (and I say that with love because I’m not even from here originally). One news story was titled: “Coroner holds on to heads in boxes.” Another was: “Human heads go nowhere for now.” Puleese, there is no grammatically sufficient way to convey this headline (ouch).

Bad Labeling, Strange Cargo

Just recently, a Southwest Airlines employee questioned the freight shipment documents for containers that were being sent from Adams Field in Little Rock and posted for Fort Worth, Texas. Yes, there were human heads in boxes at Little Rock Airport, lots of them. The Associated Press reported: “Officials say a Southwest Airlines worker stumbled across a few boxes of human heads at the Little Rock, Ark., airport.” How on earth do you stumble upon this, you ask?

Apparently the heads were being shipped by JLS Consulting of Conway, Arkansas, and the containers were brought in by General Delivery of Little Rock. But when they reached the Southwest Airlines cargo office, the deliveryman said he didn’t know what they contained. Okay, what do airlines ask you when you check baggage? You know, the “are you traveling with …” questions, and, "... did anyone give you an unknown package” speech. 

So you know this questionable freight answer is not going to fly, literally. And the airline's employees know the drill: in 2009, Southwest Airlines moved 182 million pounds of cargo. So the airline agent did what they're supposed to do and opened the containers. The agent found red bio-hazard bags and heads wrapped in absorbent pads. According to the airline's company spokesperson, Chris Mainz, the company wisely refused to ship them airfreight because they were packaged and labeled incorrectly. And he called the police. Enter one of our state’s coroners, Pulaski County’s Garland Camper.

Over to the Morgue

Camper took possession of the heads and had them transported to the county morgue, where they’ve been since June 9. There are between 40 to 60 whole and partial heads.

The shipment was bound for a Fort Worth medical laboratory that uses them for a continuing education program for doctors, said JLS founder Janice Hepler.

And Camper replied, “I’m not just going to release a bucket of heads to go across the country without verifying that these were indeed lawfully obtained.” The specimens were in three rubber containers.

The hang-up continues because Coroner Camper says he hasn’t been able to verify the information—the company can’t accurately describe the heads and there are inconsistencies. Hepler is cooperating and understands; she says nothing is wrong, that they see the coroner’s point of view, and they'll eventually present proper documentation.

Caution for Good Reason

Camper told reporters that in his 24 years with the coroner’s office, this was the first time he knew of a shipment of bodies being stopped. "We've come to the conclusion that there is a black market out there for human body parts for research or for whatever reason," Camper told NBC. "We just want to make sure these specimens here aren't a part of that black market and underground trade."

While the heads were donated to science by an undisclosed organization—the Medtronic project—their spokesman, Brian Henry, said the company uses the specimens for physician education and training and in the development of new surgical tools. He also talked about a similar holdup a few years ago involving incorrect labeling. He probably shouldn’t have shared that.

Practice Called into Question

Okay, if you’re in the business of shipping body parts, why aren’t you getting it right? The coroner had every reason to be suspicious and was just performing his due diligence. Henry remarked, “We certainly expect our suppliers to adhere to the required processes to safely ship or transport specimens,” adding that the company would “work with our suppliers to make sure that all future orders are properly labeled.”

Ethical Lapses and Administrative Mistakes

It just makes someone reconsider donating their body to science, now doesn’t it? (That and the horrible movie “Pathology,” but let’s not go there.) Still, federal law prohibits buying or selling body parts. Companies can charge for transporting body parts, but people, you must get it right. I mean, there is a certain amount of decorum here. While I'm sure anatomical materials are shipped frequently, I don’t think the public wants to hear about snafus in this regard.

There have always been horror stories and jokes told about human remains, but no one wants their loved one to be the subject of the story, now do they? Mary Roach, author of the book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, thinks that good science outweighs any taboos we may feel. She writes: “… being carved into bits and chunks and shipped to a dozen different universities and institutions seems no more distasteful than decomposing in the dark underground or being burned to a char in a crematory retort. I'm all for post-mortem adventure and travel. (I'm told that if you donate your brain to the Harvard Brain Bank, for instance, it rides up front in the cockpit on the plane to Boston.)”

The Pro Camp and Cautions 

A website called Donating Your Body to Science has an article called “The Ultimate Donation: How to Give Your Body to Science and Keep It Safe,” by the New York Times' Tara Parker-Pope, and she says that bodies donated to science have helped create crash-test dummies and safer cars, protective gear for soldiers, and a better understanding of numerous diseases.

But she also cautions that: “… potential donors should also ask what happens to a body if a university doesn't need it, and whether auditing systems are in place to track how the body is used. … potential donors and family members should ask what happens to a body when the research is complete? Many medical schools cremate the bodies. Some hold memorial services, and family members may be allowed to attend. A few universities, such as Wayne State, promise to return remains to family members.”

Mr. Henry has since told reporters he believes the heads, which he described as “four cranial samples and 40 temporal lobes,” were mislabeled by the vendor, causing the mix-up.

Notes: Southwest flies to 69 cities in 35 states.

Sources: http://www.southwest.com/about_swa/press/factsheet.html#funFacts

Donating your body to science: http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/older_and_under/death_wish.htm
TSA travel info: http://www.tsa.gov/311/index.shtm

Video and update on the Southwest story: http://www.wxii12.com/video/23957372/index.html

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