Cape Girardeau County Commission rejects medical examiner proposal

The Cape Girardeau County Commission rejected the sole proposal it received for a medical examiner during its Thursday, Dec. 28, meeting.

“We reviewed the proposal,” Presiding Commissioner Clint Tracy said of the response it received from Cape Girardeau—based doctor Chad Armstrong. “It didn’t meet all the requirements we (had), so we decided to reject that.”

Tracy said the county will hold an election for coroner in 2024 and could revisit installing a medical examiner, which is an option established by statutes for first-class counties.

Associate Commissioner Paul Koeper said the commission had talked with a group doing business in the St. Louis area for a medical examiner, but was not interested in providing additional services.

“Forensic pathologists are very hard to find,” Koeper said. “... It’s just a hard thing to come by. There just aren’t a lot of them.”

The commissioners approved a plan during their Oct. 30 meeting to request proposals from potential medical examiners. This came after months of requests from members of the public calling for the switch from a coroner to a medical examiner.

Many of those individuals expressed dissatisfaction about how current Coroner Wavis Jordan had been doing his job.

Armstrong’s proposal was the only one the commission received before the Dec. 15 deadline. The commissioners were required to take action on a medical examiner before the end of the calendar year.