As a former Allegheny County coroner, Dr. Cyril Wecht has helped prosecutors put people accused of homicide behind bars. But on Wednesday he'll try to help a University of Pittsburgh medical researcher accused of fatally poisoning his wife avoid that fate.
Wecht is scheduled to be in an Allegheny County courtroom as 66-year-old Dr. Robert Ferrante's defense wraps up its case.
Ferrante is charged with lacing his wife's energy drink with cyanide last year, killing 41-year-old Dr. Autumn Klein. Wecht is expected to contest that prosecution claim even though a positive blood test confirmed cyanide poisoning as the cause of death.
Wecht is known for consulting on celebrated death cases, including JonBenet Ramsey and Elvis Presley, and first came to fame as a critic of the Warren Commission which concluded Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy.
