(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Headline USA has obtained the autopsy records for alleged Trump shooter Thomas Crooks following a roughly two-month legal battle.
The 14-page autopsy report from Allegheny County Chief Medical Examiner Ariel Goldschmidt—obtained by this publication on Monday—states that the autopsy was conducted at 9:15 a.m. on July 14—the day after the shooting. Local reports stated that Crooks’ body was left on the rooftop of the AGR building until 6 a.m. on July 14.
Present at the autopsy were FBI agent Jill Wolfe, FBI major incidents program manager Brian Johnson, autopsy room technician Bernadette Buchholz, photographer Rachel Ecoff, and Pennsylvania State Police troopers Jennifer Cantella, Michael Pickard, and Michael Graham, according to the report. Later, the report states that another autopsy technician, Lauren Karran, collected gunshot residue test samples from Crooks’ hands.
🚨We have obtained the autopsy records for alleged Trump shooter Thomas Crooks🚨
They can be found exclusive on Headline USA. See below!!! pic.twitter.com/jlXs6l1gTa— Headline USA (@HeadlineUSA) October 7, 2024
By the time Crooks’ body was examined by Goldschmidt, rigor mortis had set in.
“The body is cold to the touch,” Goldschmidt said in his report, which largely reflects what he told lawmakers during a congressional hearing last month.
According to the report, Crooks died of a gunshot wound to the head. The report does reveal previously unpublicized information that Crooks suffered five gunshot wounds—an entry wound, an exit wound, a re-entry wound, and “two corresponding, partial re-exit wounds.”
“There is a corresponding, partial gunshot re-exit wound on the lateral right upper back … There is an additional, corresponding partial gunshot re-exit wound on the lateral right upper back,” the report stated.
Goldschmidt’s report comes at a time when there’s still controversy about how many times Crooks was shot—and by whom.
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., who sits on the House Task Force investigating the assassination attempts on Trump, has expressed belief that a local cop shot first after Crooks fired eight times. The Secret Service didn’t put the final kill shot into Crooks until 15 seconds after he opened fire, and 10 seconds after the local cop shot first, according to Higgins.
But Goldschmidt denied Higgins’ theory at last month’s congressional hearing, despite the fact that the local cop, Adams Township Police Department Sgt. Aaron Zaliponi, being adamant about hitting Crooks.
Higgins further asked Goldschmidt whether it was possible that Zaliponi’s shot caused a fragment to enter Crooks’s shoulder, which was later also hit by the Secret Service sniper. Goldschmidt also insisted that was impossible, though it’s not clear how he could make that determination.
Along with Goldschmidt’s autopsy report, Headline USA also obtained a previously unpublicized, one-page coroner’s report from Butler County Coroner William Young. The report includes a brief description of the incident leading to death.
“At the cease of gunfire, the subject was found lying prone on the rooftop by emergency personnel, with a rifle near him. The subject’s hands were zip tied behind his back by emergency personnel and pronounced deceased at 18:25 on 07/13/24 by ESU Medic Michel Vasiladiotis-Nicol,” the report said.
Young said he was called around 6:15 a.m. on July 14.
“The decedent was removed from the rooftop at AGR International by Coroner Yong and Deputy Bosiljevac The decendent was taken to Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office for a pathological examination,” the report said.
“The remains were then released to Beinhauer-Connell FH.”
Additionally, Headline USA obtained two toxicology reports for Crooks: One from Allegheny County and one from a private firm called NSM Labs. Healdine USA is still analyzing those reports, and plans on publishing them later Monday or Tuesday morning.
Headline USA obtained the above-mentioned records some two months after filing a Right to Know Law request for them. Both Butler County and Allegheny County initially denied the request, but this publication won an appeal with the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
