Meningitis Morons

“This Is Not How It’s Done”: Dr. Kohr on Missteps, Misinformation, and a Crime Scene Gone Wrong

By the time Dr. Roland Kohr, forensic pathologist and former Vigo County coroner, found himself in conflict with the Terre Haute Police Department, he had already been involved with more homicides than most local detectives had even seen.

“I found out I was the bad guy,” he recalls. “I heard through the grapevine: ‘Who the heck does Dr. Kohr think he is telling us how to run police work? He’s never been a cop.’”

What they overlooked, however, was that Kohr had examined far more homicides than the entire detective division combined. Many of whom, at that point, had only handled two.

“That set the tone for the next four years,” he says, “and it was a great tragedy.”

The tension between Kohr’s meticulous approach to forensic science and what he describes as “sloppy, defensive, or misinformed police work” did not ease. If anything, it escalated  culminating in what he now describes as one of the most disturbingly botched crime scenes of his career.

A Scene Flooded with People

The case began with a wellness check. Police responded to the home of an elderly woman, late 70s or early 80s. What they found was disturbing: furniture knocked over, blood smears on a lamp, a bathroom scene with the toilet tank lid shattered, part of it laying across the woman’s lower body. She was found naked from the waist down, abrasions and bruises visible on her body.

“From that alone, everyone assumed it was a sexual assault and homicide,” Kohr explains. “And not just the police. Even the deputy coroner on scene shared that view.”

Word of the scene traveled quickly. Too quickly.

“Instead of a properly contained investigation with one or two detectives and an evidence technician, nearly 20 people trampled through the home,” Kohr says. “They wanted to see this scene the police chief, the assistant chief, even the deputy mayor.”

It was a textbook example of how not to manage a potential homicide scene. “Even the dumbest TV show would’ve had crime scene tape. This had nothing,” he says. “It was like a public exhibition.”

“Something Wasn’t Adding Up”

When Dr. Kohr began the autopsy the next morning, things already felt off. The bruises and abrasions weren’t extensive, and no rib fractures, neck injuries, or defensive wounds suggested a violent struggle.

“We expected to find clear evidence of a brutal assault,” he says. “But we didn’t.”

Then came the final step of the autopsy. The removal of the skullcap. What he found changed everything.

“When I lifted the top of her skull, the brain was coated by thick yellow-green pus. A creamy layer. It was unmistakable,” he says. “Bacterial meningitis.”

Meningitis a severe, often fatal brain infection can cause confusion, delirium, even violent or erratic physical movement. In the final throes of the illness, the woman had likely stumbled around her home, knocking things over and injuring herself in the process.

“She hadn’t been murdered,” Kohr says. “She had died of a disease,  a brain infection so advanced it mimicked a violent crime scene.”

Misdiagnosis, Misinformation and Meningitis

When Kohr identified the infection, the detective in the room was baffled. “I said, ‘It’s meningitis,’ and he looked like he’d seen a ghost,” Kohr recalls. “That word alone like cancer  sends people into a panic.”

At this point, however, there was no way to tell that this wasn’t the contagious, outbreak-style meningococcal type that sparks military lockdowns and dormitory quarantines. But at that stage, Kohr couldn’t immediately confirm the bacterial strain.

“You don’t just swab and magically get an answer like on TV,” he says. “You have to culture it grow it on a petri dish. And that takes time. Bacteria don’t grow faster just because you yell at them.”

In time, the truth would be confirmed: an elderly woman, not assaulted, but tragically overtaken by an infection and misread by an entire department as a murder victim.

A Systemic Problem

For Dr. Kohr, the case wasn’t an isolated incident but a symptom of a larger, systemic issue.

“I don’t blame people for being shocked by what they saw. But how we respond and how we investigate has consequences,” he says. “You don’t learn the truth by storming through a scene like tourists.”

He pauses. “That’s not the way it’s done.”