Chief Petty Officer Kathleen Janoski, who photographed Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown’s body at Dover Air Force Base, described at a recent AIM conference how the Navy punished her for raising questions about the cause of Brown’s death. Janoski said she hasn’t come to any conclusions about whether the former Clinton cabinet official was murdered or not. But she is certain that certain top officials didn’t want the questions answered.

      At the conference Janoski showed a video tape that aired on the Christian Broadcasting Network about the case. The story, narrated by Dale Hurd, noted that Brown was said to have been killed in a 1996 plane crash in Croatia. But there were several irregularities in how his death was handled. Janoski, in photographing Brown’s corpse, saw a round hole in the top of his head that three pathologists said looked like a .45 caliber bullet wound. Head X-rays showed what appeared to be bullet fragments inside the head.

      Recommendations by three pathologists, including Lt. Col. Steve Cogswell, that an autopsy be made were ignored and the head X-rays were destroyed. Colonel Cogswell was given what amounted to a demotion through a transfer out of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. His career was ruined. Janoski, once the head of photography at the institute, was given 32 hours to clear out of her office and her staff was taken away. Her offense was having given copies of her photos of Brown’s head and the destroyed head X-rays to journalist Chris Ruddy.

      Reporter Hurd asked, "is Cogswell’s and Janoski’s punishment by the AFIP [Armed Forces Institute of Pathology] simply because they shined the light on shoddy work and embarrassed the Pentagon? Or is there something more? Hurd found that the AFIP was continuing to lie. In a statement, it claimed that extensive forensic tests were conducted on the body. Janoski said that was completely false.

      In another anomaly, Hurd said that an Indian medicine bag given to Brown by his girlfriend Yolanda Hill as a good luck charm was removed from a diplomatic pouch and destroyed. There’s no explanation for why this happened. Hurd said a Maryland private investigator had gotten his hands on a government document indicating that a top-secret investigation had been conducted into Brown’s death. But there’s no indication of what they found. One thing is certain: the crash was not due to bad weather. The Croatian ground controller who may have been responsible for diverting the plane into a mountain allegedly killed himself before he was questioned. The death takes on added significance because of the belief that Brown, one of Bill Clinton’s close associates, was about to cooperate with an investigation of corruption in the Clinton Administration.

      For her part, Kathleen Janoski said she was isolated, relieved of her duties, and left to sit at a desk with nothing to do. Her colleagues were afraid to be seen with her. She said her faith in the Navy and its integrity was badly shaken. The chain of command failed her. But she has no regrets and is proud of working with Chris Ruddy to bring the facts about this bungled death investigation to the public’s attention.

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