Charges leveled at Mo. doctor in autopsy case

Kim Smith

Wednesday, June 12, 2002 | 10:54 a.m.

In what prosecutors are calling a first, a Missouri doctor has been charged with the misdemeanor crime of hindering a coroner's performance after organs seized during the autopsy of a North Las Vegas woman were not returned.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Bowman said this morning that Dr. Miles J. Jones could face up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

According to court documents, Jones was asked to perform an autopsy in March on Vonda June Helm-Haney after she died following a stay at a local nursing home.

Jones reportedly performed a partial autopsy on Helm-Haney and took certain specimens and organs with him when he left Las Vegas. He later signed a death certificate saying the cause of death was homicide.

The woman's family had hired Jones, because they suspected she had died because the catheter she had used for 10 years had been removed by nursing home staff, Bowman said. The Clark County Coroner's Office began its own investigation.

Bowman said Jones has refused to provide the coroner's office the items he removed from Helm-Haney's body, autopsy reports, photos and lab reports.

"Without being able to examine the organs removed by Dr. Jones and look at the specimens and tissue samples that he removed from the state of Nevada, it makes it impossible for the Clark County Coroner's Office to define an exact cause of death," Clark County Coroner Ron Flud wrote in an affidavit.