Medical examiner wasn't at tot's death scene. Did he need to be?

Apparently, there are exceptions to New Jersey's medical examiner act.

HADDON TWP. -- Brendan Creato's lifeless body, half-exposed and draped over a rock in a stream that feeds into the Cooper River, was removed by "trained crime scene detectives" from the prosecutor's office, according to statements made in court earlier this week.

The lawyer who is defending the toddler's father, who has been charged with the boy's murder, has pointed to state law that says the county medical examiner should have been the one commanding the potential crime scene that October morning -- not police.

"Any way you slice it, the little boy deserves better than what he got from the medical examiner's office," defense lawyer Richard Fuschino, Jr. said in Camden County Superior Court this week.  

The boy's father, D.J. Creato, Jr., 22, has been behind bars since January after he was indicted on a murder charge for allegedly killing his son to continue a relationship with a teenage girlfriend who disliked children.

After three autopsies and an inconclusive toxicology test, it was determined Brendan died as a result of homicidal violence that could have been caused by drowning, strangulation or blunt neck trauma. 

State law, known as the N.J. Medical Examiner's Act, says the medical examiner -- or his deputy or assistant -- must "immediately" respond  and "take charge" at the scene when there's a suspicious death, or a sudden death of an infant or child under 3. 

In this case,  Gloucester-Salem-Camden medical examiner Dr. Gerald Feigin did not respond to the scene until four days after the Oct. 13, 2015 discovery of Creato's body. Instead, one of his investigators took the body from the scene to a facility in Woodbury to perform the autopsy. A report filed by the investigator notes that police documented the scene and pulled the boy's body from the creek bed, but it's not clear whether anyone from the medical examiner's office investigated the scene that day. 

During court on Monday, Assistant Prosecutor Christine Shah said Feigin "followed the letter of the law" when it came to the Creato death scene.

She noted there are provisions in the law that allow for the prosecutor's office to also go out and that the crime scene detectives later turned the toddler's body over to the medical examiner's office.

Absurd to dismiss case

The state Attorney General's office, which oversees the state's medical examiners, agrees. Peter Aseltine, a public information officer with the AG's office said having the medical examiner's office on scene "is not strictly required" despite what the Medical Examiner's Act says.

"For many years, the regulations put in place to implement that statute have contemplated that the medical examiner or assistant medical examiner may delegate those responsibilities to trained and qualified investigators," said Aseltine.

Aseltine continued that investigators employed in the northern and southern regional medical examiners offices are "trained to telephone a medical examiner or assistant medical examiner for consultation when needed. Upon consultation, a determination is made regarding whether it is necessary for the medical examiner to respond to the scene."

Dr. Peter Speth, a Wenonah, Gloucester County, resident who previously served for years as the county's medical examiner, vehemently disagrees with the open stages of the investigation.

"You (as the medical examiner) don't go there and take over. You authorize what happens," Speth said Wednesday of the local medical examiner's office working with law enforcement at the scene.

Speth believes there would have been more evidence in the case had the medical examiner's office adhered to the law. 

For example, Speth said he would have taken the temperature of the body at the scene, checked for blood gathering in low-hanging extremities and gathered potassium levels released after death to narrow down when Brendan could have died.

"You never know ahead of time what an experienced forensic pathologist could have done at a scene," he said.