The photographs show corpses lying atop one another in the Harris County morgue. Beneath the white sheets, legs intertwine. Shoes, clothing and other personal effects are casually strewn across the bodies.

Several pictures show the body of an infant wedged in among the adults.

There are 17 color photos in all, mailed anonymously by an employee of the Medical Examiner's Office to county officials and two members of the news media. They purport to show "body stacking" at the morgue over the Memorial Day weekend and the first week of August.

Body stacking occurs when workers run out of metal trays - which are similar to hospital gurneys and are used to store bodies before or after autopsies - and place bodies atop one other.

Harris County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Joye Carter argues vehemently that the photos were staged, although the photographer insists they are accurate and another employee in a different section of the office verified some of them.

But one way or the other, the pictures graphically demonstrate the problems Carter faces. They either document poor procedure and an appalling disrespect for the bodies under the medical examiner's oversight or they prove the depth of hostility some of her employees feel toward Carter that they would stage such a grisly scene.

It is the not the first time Carter's management has come under question. In fact, the body-stacking revelation is but the latest in a string of controversies dating to November 1997, when the medical examiner's public clash with District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr. led to admonishments from several of her bosses on Harris County Commissioners Court.

"We either need to get the issues resolved, or we're going to have to get a medical examiner who can cooperate with the DA," County Judge Robert Eckels warned at the time. Then he added, "I don't think you're going to see this drag on for years."

The issue then was Carter's feud with Holmes, one of the county's most powerful politicians, over prosecution delays caused by an autopsy backlog in her office. Holmes also complained that Carter's office was uncooperative in honoring subpoenas to testify in court.

As unhappy as they were with Holmes' complaints, Eckels and several commissioners were even more put off by Carter's response in the media, in which she blasted Holmes as being "part of the old boys' club" - a comment she later denied under oath.

More than a year later, problems persist at the office, which uses its $6.3 million annual budget to perform autopsies, test evidence found at crime scenes and conduct monthly drug screens for 10,000 to 12,000 Harris County probationers a month.

Despite extensive technological modernization of its various crime laboratories and a large decrease in the autopsy backlog, the Medical Examiner's Office has been beset by a lengthy series of embarrassing controversies. In the past year, the office has been the focus of at least three criminal investigations, lawsuits by two employees who contend they were fired for reporting illegal practices, the accidental cremation of a wrong body, the employment of an unlicensed physician and questions about the reliability of autopsies in several high-profile homicide cases.

In addition, Carter's relations with Holmes remain cool at best, and her relationship with some outside advisory groups, judges, law-enforcement officials and local leaders often is not much better. A significant number of her employees are in open revolt, with some anonymously releasing photographs and documents questioning her policies and practices.

As a result, many of those who deal with the Medical Examiner's Office most frequently say it no longer consistently fulfills its role in law enforcement.

Loss of confidence

Several judges, lawyers and law-enforcement officials say they have lost confidence in the office - confidence they say is vital to investigation and, in come cases, prosecution of homicide cases in Harris County.

That was brought to the forefront during a murder trial in July, in which Carter and Dr. Marilyn Murr - a former assistant medical examiner Carter had fired four months earlier - repeatedly contradicted each other during their testimony.

The exchange led Assistant District Attorney Linda Garcia to tell state District Judge Ted Poe in court that, "Carter has misspoken, misstated and exaggerated to this court . . . . Dr. Carter's motives have been questioned here."

After the trial, Poe asked another senior assistant district attorney whether her confidence in the Medical Examiner's Office had been shaken by the problems that had come to light during the trial. The prosecutor replied that it had.

Months later, Poe still agrees.

"Some of their cases have brought a credibility issue with that office," he said in a recent interview. "There are specific cases which have come to this court which have shown there's a credibility problem."

And while acknowledging that anyone might have a tough time succeeding Joseph Jachimczyk - a popular chief medical examiner who served for 35 years before retiring in August 1995 - Poe said, "In cases where the medical examiner is involved, their findings have become an issue now in cases where before they never were an issue.

"Their findings, their credibility, is questioned more than it used to be."

Told about Poe's comments, Holmes merely shrugged.

"He's right about that," the prosecutor said. "I agree with him. In her short period here, she's had a lot of problems that don't build confidence."

But there have been victories as well.

A long-delayed computer system is up and running, the backlog of autopsy results was reduced by 78 percent in the last three months of 1997 alone, the office's investigative branches are expanding and a variety of modernization plans have been implemented.

Giving credit

Even Holmes - who has locked horns with Carter several times in her 2 1/2 years in office - gives her credit for some improvement.

"They're doing better than they were when it first hit the fan," he said.

But interviews with nearly three dozen judges, doctors, employees, county officials and law-enforcement officers show that, despite those improvements, the office has yet to win the confidence its detractors say is lacking.

Although critics can point to no cases in which a homicide prosecution was lost as a result of problems at the office, there are a number of cases in which they say defense attorneys are being given ammunition to question findings that should be clear-cut.

One example was the homicide case in Poe's courtroom, where Carter and Murr openly disagreed about the presence of rigor mortis in a murder victim.

Another, higher profile case also pitted Carter against Murr . Shortly after her firing, Murr went public with accusations that Carter had asked her to change the report of Murr 's autopsy of Laura Smither, the 12-year-old Friendswood girl found dead 17 days after her disappearance in April 1997.

Murr said Carter wanted the report to say that hairs found on Smither's body during the autopsy were the result of contamination at the morgue. Murr declined, saying there was no evidence to support the contamination claim at the time.

Although subsequent tests appear to back Carter's claim that the hairs had come from another body at the morgue, Murr said Carter gave no such evidence at the time of her request.

Because there have been no charges filed in Smither's killing, the debate has not yet spilled over into a courtroom.

In addition, the family of a 17-year-old LaPorte girl and their attorney are questioning the medical examiner's 1996 ruling of homicide in the death of the girl, Hillory Janean Farias. Dr. Tommy Brown, then an assistant medical examiner, ruled that Farias died from an overdose of gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), the "date rape" drug.

No charges have been filed in the Farias case, either.

Critics in the ranks

Among Carter's most vociferous critics are a faction of her own employees - both current and former. Most of the critical employees have asked that they not be identified because they fear retaliation from Carter and her management team, and they cite two recent firings, including Murr 's, that led to whistle-blower lawsuits.

Employees say that infighting has become so rampant that the office has taken on a "Gestapo-like" feel.

"When you go to work, you feel like, what's going to happen next?" one employee said. "Some of the people are just there to document if you do anything wrong. Nobody knows who you can talk to and who you can't.

"Used to be everybody would say hello. Now, nobody ever says hello. Nobody there wants to work together. They're all off on their own."

Indeed, two distinct cliques seem to have emerged in the past year - employees loyal to Carter and those opposed to her. The situation has degenerated to the point where anonymous mailings are being sent to employees appearing to document various complaints, including body stacking and record tampering, and urging employees to report problems to the media and to various county and state officials.

Carter acknowledges staff "malcontents" who, she says, are opposed to her management and are trying to sabotage the office. In one instance, someone mailed their colleagues a complete list of the office staff and their salaries - an action that appears to bolster Carter's contention that some are trying to sow dissension among the staff.

"Some of them don't want the office to function properly," she said. "They're trying to poison the water, but they can't poison the water. The best thing we can do is just keep doing our job."

Jachimczyk, Carter's predecessor, occasionally hears from employees complaining about Carter's overbearing management style, and he is frustrated by it.

"If anything, she has politicized that office so much that there's no telling what it would take to un-politicize it," he said. "She's arrogant. She won't let anybody help her.

"I'm glad she knows all the answers because the rest of us are still learning."

The backbiting is indicative of deep problems at the office, problems that have sparked the interest of the Commissioners Court and are vividly demonstrated by the body-stacking photographs.

"That's inexcusable," said Jachimczyk, as he paged through the photos. "My gosh, this is unconscionable. No wonder they get bodies mixed up" - a reference to a mix-up in September in which the morgue released the wrong body for cremation.

Carter has seen the photographs and says they are - without question - posed.

"These are all staged photographs, and this is certainly unlawful," she said. "I mean, the very idea that somebody would do this. This is criminal, and if we do find out who did this, I'm going to forward their names to the police and district attorney's office.

"These have been staged, and I will say until I turn blue . . . that these have been staged."

The photographer, who has been identified by the Houston Chronicle, has acknowledged that sheets were moved aside for some of the pictures so that toe tags could be revealed to document when the stacking occurred. In one instance, the photographer said, a body was removed from a stack in order to reveal the presence of the infant's body between two adult bodies.

Otherwise, the photographer said, the photos are accurate and unaltered.

Another employee of a different section of the Medical Examiner's Office independently verified at least some of the photographs. Both said body stacking is rare, but that it does occur. It is a concern not only because it appears disrespectful, but also because it can lead to contamination of evidence if the bodies are stacked prior to autopsy.

While insisting that the photographs were staged, Carter offered a qualified denial of whether body stacking has ever occurred at the office.

"To my knowledge, there has not been body stacking," she said. "There shouldn't be body stacking. I do not support body stacking."

But, Carter said later, "If we've ever had to stack bodies, what we could do is put an order in for trays, some additional trays." She also acknowledged that the morgue does run short on trays "from time to time. Yeah, actually, probably over a holiday."

Witnesses said the stacking was done on the orders of - and with the help of - morgue supervisor Victor Forney, a charge at which Carter scoffs.

"That is ridiculous," she said. "I don't mind telling you, there are a group of people here that do not like having Mr. Forney here, and this is just ridiculous.

"It goes to show to what lengths people will go to totally disrespect the body like this."

Forney, who worked with Carter when she was medical examiner in Washington, D.C., has been among the more controversial of Carter's appointments and is unpopular with some employees. He is unable to comment because of Carter's strict office policy barring office employees other than Carter and her chief administrative officer, Alex Conforti, from speaking with the media.

District Attorney Holmes said the stacking pictures show "sloppy" work and that having them fall into the hands of defense attorneys is his "worst nightmare."

Asked if a good criminal defense attorney could mount a challenge to autopsy results based on the photos, Holmes' reply was typically curt.

"I don't think you'd have to be good," he said.

New problems arise

After the November 1997 clash between Carter and Holmes, Eckels and commissioners Jim Fonteno, Steve Radack and Jerry Eversole said they were becoming increasingly frustrated by complaints that the office was being combative and uncooperative with the district attorney's office.

Thirteen months later, Eckels said he has seen major improvements at the office, but continuing controversy as well.

"From my perspective, some of the problems we've had in the past have been eliminated," Eckels said in arecent interview. "At the same time, we are having more questions raised regarding the management of the office.

"There's some positives, and some needed changes in the office. But the key ultimately in this operation is (that) there has to be credible findings for the investigators, the folks that are involved in using this office on a day-to-day basis. They need to get to the bottom of mysterious deaths or finding the clues they need to solve crimes."

As for his conclusions on Carter's management, Eckels said, "The jury's still out. The backlog of cases has been much improved. So there's been some good things that have happened over there. But there are still some problems. And they need to get some management controls in place to resolve those problems. So the jury's still out on whether it's been a successful transition or not.

"In the overall performance of the office, there's still, I think, a lot of room for improvement."

At the center of any discussion of the Medical Examiner's Office is Carter herself.

The youngest of four girls born to a schoolteacher in East Liverpool, Ohio, Carter was reared with an understanding of the importance of education. She said she loved school, and her studies paid off. She graduated cum laude from Wittenberg University in 1979, and joined the Air Force to help pay for her future medical studies. After getting her medical degree from Howard University in 1983, she went on active duty.

By the time she was 34, Carter was the military's deputy chief medical examiner for forensic education and training, responsible for teaching forensics to military investigators from all branches of the service. She also was becoming better known in her field, and went on to become chief medical examiner in Washington, D.C., before coming to Houston.

Her supporters note that she is strong, confident and undeniably intelligent. Even her critics acknowledge her medical expertise.

But seen by her critics, many of her strengths can also be weaknesses.

Questions of style

Carter's confidence often comes off as cockiness, belligerence and an unwillingness to accept suggestions. In a recent interview, she commented, "I don't know of anyone that can actually intimidate me. That doesn't happen."

As one employee said, "She knows how to give good (medical) lectures, and she does very good autopsies, but she doesn't know how to manage things. She's very controlling.

"It's not like you're trying to hurt things. You're trying to help, and they don't understand that."

Or, as Holmes put it: "She's bullheaded - almost confrontationally confident. Her social graces need improvement."

For example, Carter offended several members of the Houston/Harris County Child Fatality Review Team last year when she wrote that the team was "creating severe damage to the criminal justice program designed to reduce the occurrence of child fatalities in our communities."

The child fatality team is a group of 15 to 20 doctors, social workers and local government employees trying to reduce fatalities among children. Carter has complained that some members were "totally out of line" in questioning some of the medical examiner's investigations.

Team members say their questioning is valid, and they point to an incident last year in which team members produced information in a child's death that led the Medical Examiner's Office to reconsider the cause of death. A ruling of sudden infant death syndrome was changed to asphyxiation after the review team informed the office that a drunken adult had been sleeping with the baby at the time of the infant's death.

Although individual team members have complained privately about Carter's attitude toward the group, they also acknowledge that they are still getting full cooperation - "and we're hoping it will continue."

`One-sided' coverage

Carter said criticism is part of the job and she expects it, but she said she believes she is the target of a combination of disgruntled employees and "one-sided" media coverage of her office's various controversies.

"This is a job, whether I like it or not, that is very high profile," she said. "But I don't really think we've really had fair coverage."

But even Eckels said much of the coverage of the office that Carter perceives as negative is brought on by the office itself.

"There's a lot of negative there," he said. "You've got some problems there."

As far as the most recent controversies, Carter said she is limited in what she can say publicly about the firings and subsequent lawsuits involving Drs. Elizabeth "Libby" Johnson and Marilyn Murr . Both filed whistle-blower lawsuits against the county after their firings; Johnson won $375,000, and Murr 's case is expected to be tried next year.

Murr was fired two months after reporting to Holmes and the Houston Chronicle that Carter had allowed Dr. Delbert Van Dusen to perform autopsies at the office despite his lack of a Texas medical license. Carter contends Murr 's firing was unrelated to the Van Dusen case, saying Murr was fired because of a poor attitude and unprofessional conduct.

Because the Murr case is in litigation, Carter said, she cannot discuss the details. As for Van Dusen, Carter said he is "an excellent pathologist" who was undergoing training. She thought the only limits on Van Dusen were that he could not sign a death certificate.

That view was not shared by the state Board of Medical Examiners, which has twice denied Van Dusen a license as a result of his practice at the county morgue. Van Dusen is appealing those decisions.

Things are more clear-cut in the case of Jose Montalvo, whose body was accidentally cremated in September. Carter said her office policies were not followed, but that she also is working to begin a program in which bar codes are placed on toe tags in an attempt to avoid releasing the wrong body again in the future.

Carter said she believes her office is well on the way to becoming one of the best medical examiner's offices in the country, but that there will likely be more controversies along the way in 1999.

"Every day has not been perfect. You can only do what you can do," she said. "When there is a problem, we have not tried to hide it or deny it. You have to face up to it and be responsible for your actions. That's all part of that whole thing."

Medical Examiner's Office under a microscope

Controversies

The Harris County Medical Examiner's Office has been rocked by several major controversies in the 2 1/2 years since Dr. Joye Carter became chief medical examiner. Some of the most notable include:

Complaints by families and friends of victims of the Dec. 22, 1996, explosion at the Wyman-Gordon Metal Forgings Inc. plant that the office took three months to identify six victims of the explosion.

A successful whistle-blower lawsuit by Dr. Elizabeth "Libby" Johnson, former head of the office's DNA lab, who contended she was wrongly fired for reporting alleged cover-ups of evidence and sabotage in the lab. Johnson won $375,000 from the county.

A simmering feud between Carter and District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr., which became public last year when Holmes aired complaints about the office, including the backlog of autopsy reports (which was subsequently reduced) and the low number of autopsies performed by Carter herself.

Carter responded by saying that Holmes was "unprofessional" and trying to "micromanage" her office. She also accused Holmes of being a member of the "old boys' club" - a comment that, under oath, she later denied making. Several members of Harris County Commissioners Court hinted that Carter's job could be in jeopardy.

The discovery this January that Carter allowed Delbert Van Dusen to perform more than 200 autopsies at the office despite his lack of a Texas medical license. The Van Dusen case has prompted state and local investigations, including the possibility of a grand jury investigation in the next several months. As a result, Van Dusen's license application has been denied by the state.

The firing of Dr. Marilyn Murr , an assistant medical examiner who was providing information to the media and the District Attorney's Office about the Van Dusen case and other potentially illegal activity at the office. Carter denied the firing had anything to do with Murr 's cooperation, saying Murr was fired for unprofessional conduct and a poor attitude. Murr has since filed a whistle-blower lawsuit.

The mistaken cremation of Jose Montalvo's body in September after morgue officials released the wrong body. The county and the Montalvo family are currently in negotiations to avoid a lawsuit.

Successes

The office also has had some major successes since Carter's appointment. Among them:

A major decrease in the backlog of local cases awaiting autopsy and reports to the District Attorney's Office, following a public clash between Carter and Holmes. A report by the County Budget Office earlier this year showed a 78 percent decrease in the backlog - from more than 1,000 cases to 217. Carter says the current backlog has decreased even more since then.

The elimination of split fees for doctors performing out-of-county autopsies. Carter and Commissioners Court eliminated the practice of allowing assistant medical examiners to pocket $400 of the $900 fee charged for out-of-county autopsies. Prosecutors argued that the system encouraged doctors to give higher priority to the out-of-county cases and expanded the already bloated backlog of local autopsy cases.

Carter's change in the way bodies are transported to the morgue. The county now contracts with one local funeral home to transport corpses for $70 each. The county had previously allowed all funeral homes to transport the corpses free of charge to the county, a system that critics said allowed the funeral homes to recruit business from bereaved families when they were least able to make an informed decision.

The creation of a formal training policy for the office's 11 death investigators and an expansion of the investigators' responsibilities. The office's death investigators now attend the Medicolegal Death Investigator Training Course in St. Louis and have monthly meetings to review new information.

A significant expansion in the office's reliance on technology and more modern methods of investigation. Thanks in part to a nearly 50 percent increase in her office's budget in 1997, Carter has been able to fully computerize the office and outfit it with some of the most modern DNA, toxicology and photography equipment.

An expanded training program for those outside the Medical Examiner's Office. Doctors, law-enforcement officials, law students and defense attorneys can now receive training in how the office functions through frequent tours and training programs offered by Carter's staff.

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