How much is the character of Dr. Robbins like you?

Some of Dr. Robbins is ‘me’. Robert David Hall is a very warm and sincere individual. When we are together, we get along very well and I think we have many similarities. The show puts the doctor toward the back of the action, but that is not how it is in real forensic life.

What’s the strangest question a CSI writer has ever posed?

“How can we determine if the individual was dead before they were found in pieces on the highway after being ground up in the wheel well of a bus?” Well, there is no way to tell that! The writer had their own theory of how the veins of a severed limb might look and they went ahead with it.

How difficult is it for the actors to get their heads round tricky forensic language?

They handle it just fine. They’re professionals and they master their parts and lines. Their biggest concern is usually the pronunciation of a forensic term. It does take me back a bit when I start to discuss medical topics with any of them, and I get a blank stare in return. Then I have to catch myself and realise that they only memorise lines!

What’s the strangest thing you’ve found inside a dead body?

A brilliant purple and green intestine from a deranged individual who consumed an entire can of PVC cement! And drug bindles in the rectum are not uncommon.

 

 

Does anything still make you squeamish in your line of work?

No, sorry, it’s a conditioning thing, but some smells are still very repulsive. The first few years you see just about all the gruesome stuff you are going to. All cases are different but they’re combinations of things you've seen before. Can you identify an internal organ just by feel? Yes.The pancreas is about the size of an average fish fillet at a seafood counter. It has about the same firmness but ‘lumpier.’ A kidney fits nicely into the palm of your hand. It has a firm rubbery texture. The surface is smooth. A liver is a large heavy thing... hard to mistake. It usually requires two hands to lift. It's right side is very thick and wide and it tapers to the left.

Is there any high-profile case you wished you could have worked on?

No! High-profile cases are a double-edged sword. You might be seen as a hero or a bum – it totally depends on how the press spins it. You are at their mercy. Your career, integrity, credibility and competency are all on the line. If the DA wins the case, it’s because of their brilliance. If they lose... it’s your fault as an expert witness.

Can you give us an example?

Our chief medical examiner here in Las Vegas took the Ted Binion murder case. And I'm glad he did. Four different pathologists said four different things; the suspects were convicted anyway and the case is now up for retrial. I like to think staying honest will get me through the most difficult situations. There are plenty of ‘experts’ out there who will tell you anything that you are willing to pay for. Honesty and integrity: these are the most important virtues in forensics. I wish that everyone in the profession had them. That’s what people deserve.

By Matt Seward
Managing Editor

CADILLAC - Gary Telgenhoff is a drummer with a doctor's mind. The 44-year-old Cadillac native has taken what he calls a convoluted path to becoming a forensic pathologist in Nevada.

Telgenhoff has gone from playing in a band in junior high while having a weird curiosity of how the body works, to giving advice for a hit television show, releasing a CD and performing autopsies in the nation's murder capital.

"The first band I was in was Chelsea Crystal. It is almost embarrassing to think about now," Telgenhoff said during a recent stop in Cadillac. "We played high school dances around the area. We didn't do too bad - we made money."

While his musical career was just getting off the ground, seeds were being planted for his professional vocation as well. The two pursuits often intertwined.

"I had a friend who was a meat inspector, and he would bring me tidbits from his inspector's room," Telgenhoff said. "They were things of interest to a weird kid."

One of those interesting little tidbits was a dead pig Telgenhoff kept in his parents' freezer. He dissected the pig a few years before it became a biology class requirement. "My parents about hit the floor," Telgenhoff said about his family's reaction upon discovering the piglet. "I cleared the room and can still clear the room."

"I put the piggy guy in the sink and wanted to see what was inside. When I was done, I would put it in the freezer to preserve it for a future look. After awhile I had to get rid of the pig."

"I never killed any animals," he said. "Early on, I was interested in how things worked. I liked taking them apart but I was never interested in putting them back together."

Telgenhoff admits he was a strange child. He liked reading textbooks, such as high school and college level chemistry and physiology books, when he was in junior high. His love for studying and anatomy seemed like a perfect fit for medical school. However, he didn't always agree.

"I was more interested in music," Telgenhoff said. "I never thought of it [medical school] until someone mentioned it to me."

After graduating from Cadillac High School, Telgenhoff went to Spring Arbor College. When he graduated from Spring Arbor, he went right back to work - pursuing his musical dreams.
"I had an offer in Alpena with former band members of the group FROST, " Telgenhoff said.

The band made some changes and Telgenhoff moved to Ann Arbor with the intention of going to grad school. He enrolled at Eastern Michigan University and earned a master's degree in physiology. "At the same time, I joined the band the WHIZ KIDS, Telgenhoff said. I played with them while in grad school and taught nursing students anatomy."

It was during grad school that a professor asked if Telgenhoff ever considered becoming a doctor.

"I applied for the hell of it. I didn't really want to be a doctor," he said. I was accepted at two places and I thought I would go for the interviews. Then I figured (since) I was accepted and passed the interviews, I'd better go."

Telgenhoff went to Michigan State University. During his first year, he still played with the WHIZ KIDS while studying. At the end of his first year, he played on a cruise ship in Detroit with the WHIZ KIDS.

Despite his musical pursuits, he studied hard enough to finish in the top 5 percentile of his medical school class.

"That (studying) is all I ever did," he said.
"I was in my room all the time studying. When I set my mind to it, I pretty much do it. Other kids were going skiing, but this comes harder for me. I think my hard work replaces some gifted people's meager efforts. Some people don't have to work at it."

Besides studying and playing music, Telgenhoff earned a few extra dollars by teaching classes. He taught three, including histology, the study of things under a microscope. He had become interested in histology when he was in junior high.

I made it through medical school in four years," Telgenhoff said. "I loved the book work and test-taking. I always did extremely well. When it came to taking care of people, I didn't like it. I never wanted to be a doctor. I didn't want to pick up bed pans, never liked the smell. I didn't want to hear them suffering. It wasn't for me."

"I thought to myself, 'I'm in a world where I don't belong.' I loved the study but I didn't want to take care of the people."

That is when he turned to pathology, where he could study diseases but not have to deal with

'I can't give up music. I'm a doctor, but I am also still a musician. I am like white trash with toys.'

Gary Telgenhoff

patients directly. He did an internship at Lansing's Ingham Medical Center and a four-year pathology residency at the Cleveland Clinic and Medical College of Ohio.

"After the residency in pathology at the Cleveland clinic, I had exposure to the forensic morgue in Cleveland. It was pretty gross, but it sure was interesting." he said. "I was so interested in it, I wanted to do that from there out."

Telgenhoff went to work for the Dayton, Ohio crime lab and received an additional year of fellowship training in forensic pathology.

'Certain cases do stick out," he said.
One of those cases involved a missing teen-ager who had not returned home for several days. Sometime later, a pizza shop noticed one of their ovens wasn't working very well and called in a repairman.

"The repairman stuck a broom stick into the chimney and runs into a huge resistance. The kid got stuck," Telgenhoff said. "I still eat pizza, but I think about it," he said.

But the cases really turned interesting when Telgenhoff moved to Las Vegas. Telgenhoff said the neon city has received an unfair reputation for having a lot of suicides.

"We actually have a normal suicide rate . . . people come here to commit suicide," he said. We get a falsely elevated number of suicides in the statistics. People come from other places to do it . . . they plan it out."

Telgenhoff said many people come to Las Vegas to jump off the Hoover Dam or some of the interesting high-rise buildings and casinos. One of those buildings, the Stratosphere, is heavily guarded, with gates blocking access to the building, he said. In addition, there are two sets of high chain-link fences at the top of the structure. However, one apparently disturbed but determined individual breached security.

"Someone finally did it," Telgenhoff said. But they forgot that the restaurant sticks out. He smashed on top of the roof first, then went the rest of the way.

"I wonder what a couple's anniversary dinner was like with that added feature," he added.

Telgenhoff also remembers a murder case that was quickly solved. Police went to a persons house to investigate a murder.

They found a body wrapped mummy-fashion in duct tape.
The body was unwrapped and ribbons and bows were found, indicating that the victim hadn't actually been murdered, but died from a bizarre autoerotic practice which went awry, Telgenhoff said.

What police couldn't figure out initially was how the person could wrap themselves in duct tape. While searching the house, they found three wooden dowels with empty duct tape rolls on them.

Cadillac native sees dark side of Vegas and limelight of Hollywood

"The guy had concocted this elaborate thing that went around his legs and arms (in duct tape)," Telgenhoff said. Since it was obvious that he had been doing this for quite some time, " . . . what they couldn't figure out was how he got the tape off." After further search they noticed the hinges on the bathroom door had been sharpened and there were all kinds of duct tape fragments on the hinges. "He didn't calculate very well and suffocated."

Telgenhoff recently had to testify in a murder trial about an autopsy he performed on a woman who was found in a garbage can. Prosecutors charged the woman's daughter with her murder.

The woman was missing for about two years before a neighbor started asking questions, Telgenhoff said. The woman was found with a plastic bag around her
mouth and nose.

"I had to sit on the stand and say that her cause of death was undetermined, although the weight of circumstantial evidence was suffocation. I could not scientifically prove the cause. That case was hard on my integrity and hard on my sense of duty. I did not make a lot of friends at the police station that day, " he said.

 

A life made for TV

If Telgenhoff's life sounds more like the subject of a television series, it is.

It was not unusual for Telgenhoff to give writers background information to use in their next crime novel but one day, he found a guy at the door who was writing a movie script.

"There was this guy, a regular guy with kind of a goofy side like mine. He was a jokester and I did not take him too seriously," Telgenhoff said. "But I would still take the time to show the guy around." The guy turned out to be Anthony Zuiker, the creator of the CBS show "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." I showed him what we do and he saw different cases and started to pick up the lingo, " Telgenhoff said. "He also spent time with the CSA's (Crime Scene Analysts)." For several months, Telgenhoff did not hear from Zuiker. Then he heard a knock on the back door at work.

"Here is this same guy with a nice package of a bottle of wine, a thank-you card and a video tape of the first episode of CSI," Telgenhoff said.

CBS bought the first 13 episodes for some- thing like $1 million. Zuiker continued to send Telgenhoff signed scripts, jackets and other para- phernalia from the set. Telgenhoff and Zuiker have stayed in contact and Zuiker has given Telgenhoff a standing invitation to visit the set for filming.

While Telgenhoff was making a name for him- self in the morgue, he could not get the music bug out of his system. "I can't give up music," Telgenhoff said. "I'm a doctor, but I am also still a musician. I am like white trash with toys." One of those toys is a recording studio in his home. Telgenhoff wrote a song about his profession, called "Speak For You." "I speak for people who can no longer speak for themselves," Telgenhoff said. "I sent it off to Anthony for yuks. He said he played it at work for the other writers, producers and co- executive producers and the office was rocking. He said they loved it. I was thinking, well, OK. Then he said they wanted to use it."

Telgenhoff's song has been aired at least 3 times. He has released the album "Speak For You" under the band name "SkinnerRat," which has 12 songs. "I have three more albums in the works. It is like my mission," he said. But if Telgenhoff's musical career takes off, don't expect to see him leave the morgue. "I could never give up dead people,"
he says.

 

As seen in the Saturday - Monday Cadillac News, February 16 - 18, 2002, with some minor corrections.

By Matt Seward
Managing Editor

Photography
Jeff Broddle