By Dorrothy Moyo | Dr. David Fowler, a South African-born forensic pathologist who once stood among the most prominent figures in U.S. medical examiner circles, has seemingly disappeared from public life following a wave of backlash over his controversial testimony in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin — the former police officer convicted of killing George Floyd.
Now, after a major independent audit of his work, Maryland officials have announced the reinvestigation of approximately 100 in-custody deaths that occurred under Fowler’s watch. Civil rights groups say these reviews may confirm long-standing allegations that Fowler’s office minimized the role of police violence in dozens of deaths.
The Trial That Changed Everything.
In 2021, Fowler stunned many Americans when, as a defense witness in the Chauvin trial, he testified that George Floyd’s death was not homicide, but “undetermined.”
“He had a sudden cardiac arrhythmia… during his restraint by the police,” Fowler said in court, attributing Floyd’s death to preexisting heart disease, drug use, and even possible carbon monoxide exposure—an untested and ultimately discredited theory.
Fowler’s conclusions contradicted the official ruling by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, who determined that Floyd’s death was a homicide caused by law enforcement restraint.
The backlash was immediate. Over 400 U.S. medical professionals signed a letter calling for a formal review of Fowler’s past cases, suggesting his findings demonstrated “pro-law enforcement or racially biased interpretations of autopsy evidence.”
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Maryland Launches Sweeping Audit
In response, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh ordered an unprecedented audit of more than 1,300 in-custody deaths during Fowler’s tenure as Chief Medical Examiner from 2002 to 2019.
According to NPR, the independent audit team found troubling patterns and recommended that approximately 100 cases be formally reinvestigated. Each of the flagged deaths shared two critical traits:
• The individual died while physically restrained by police.
• There was no obvious medical cause of death.
“We embarked on this process with the goal of overseeing a professional and independent audit that adheres to the highest standards of impartiality and integrity,” Frosh said in a public statement in October 2022.
The audit team is now tasked with determining whether original conclusions—such as “accidental” or “natural causes”—were appropriate, or whether the use of force played a direct role in the deaths.
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The Anton Black Case: A Flashpoint
Among the most high-profile of the disputed cases is the 2018 death of 19-year-old Anton Black, a Black teenager who was pinned down by police for six minutes until he stopped breathing. A white civilian and three white officers chased Black, deployed a taser, and restrained him in a prone position.
Fowler concluded that Black’s death was not caused by police action, but was the result of a sudden cardiac event, combined with bipolar disorder and the struggle. No officers were charged.
Black’s family, however, filed a federal lawsuit in 2020, naming Fowler as a co-defendant and alleging he “attempted to cover up the cause of death” by excluding restraint as a contributing factor in the autopsy.
“For decades, family members of those killed by police have said that the medical examiner’s reports are wrong,” said Sonia Kumar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Maryland.
“It does not pass the smell test to claim that their loved ones died because of car exhaust, or hot temperatures, or bipolar disorder, when police restrained them right before they died.”
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Fowler’s Silence and Disappearance
Despite being once hailed as a leading authority—having represented the National Association of Medical Examiners—Fowler has not responded to repeated requests for comment by major media outlets, including NPR and the Associated Press.
In a rare 2021 interview with the Baltimore Sun, Fowler said:
“There’s a large team of forensic pathologists, with layers of supervision, and those medical examiners always did tremendous work.”
Since then, he has vanished from both public life and professional directories. His current whereabouts—whether in South Africa, the U.S., or elsewhere—remain unknown.
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Global Implications and South African Concerns
In South Africa, where Fowler was born and trained, legal experts and activists have begun raising concerns over how his Western forensic expertise was deployed to deny state violence, particularly in racially charged contexts.
The story resonates deeply in a country with its own legacy of police brutality, cover-ups, and contested inquest findings—drawing eerie parallels between the apartheid-era pathologist system and modern-day forensic manipulation in the U.S.