David Blodgett died Nov. 23, the victim of an apparent heart attack. So when the Gift of Life organ donation program asked Lancaster County Coroner Dr. G. Gary Kirchner to sign off on the donation of Blodgett’s organs, Kirchner consented — not realizing that the bullet lodged in Blogett’s hip might have had something to do with his death.


But Blodgett’s wife — who, Kirchner said, also consented to the donation — thought the heart attack might have been caused by the morphine her husband had taken since June, when he and his wife were shot on their wedding day, outside their Old Dorwart Street home.


That could make his death a murder, and District Attorney Donald R. Totaro wanted an autopsy done — but without the donated organs, that seemed quite impossible. Totaro, annoyed, told the media that Kirchner fouled up. Newspapers around the state ran a story with the lead: “The Lancaster County district attorney is criticizing the county coroner for going ahead with an organ transplant last week.”


Blodgett’s organs have been returned, and the autopsy conducted (see related story). But once again, it looked like Kirchner and Totaro were locking horns.


Except, say both men, it’s really not like that at all.


Sure, there’s been bad blood between the two, some of it spattered all over the front page of this newspaper. And yes, Totaro helped trigger a state grand jury investigation of Kirchner late last year, to determine whether the coroner had provided the media with access to confidential information.


And sure, just two weeks ago Kirchner wrote in an e-mail to more than six dozen local officials that Totaro considers him an “enemy of law enforcement.”


But be all of that as it may, both the DA and the coroner say their relationship has improved greatly. They’re meeting on a regular basis, and “Our focus is on developing a positive relationship that serves the interest of crime victims, law enforcement officers and the coroner,” said Totaro, who declined to comment further.


“I am sure his attitude toward me is much better and now normal,” Kirchner said last week.


“Don and I look at things differently. ... But difference a conflict does not make.”


The tension builds




The difference between Kirchner and Totaro is one of style as well as substance. Kirchner, who says he may seek a second term, is gregarious and garrulous. A former trauma surgeon who is the son of long-time Lancaster New Era sports editor George Kirchner, he used to write frequent letters to local newspapers, and for a while penned a column for the Sunday News. As such, he’s quite at ease with the media, forthcoming and usually good for a quote.


Totaro is far more deliberate and circumspect. A county prosecutor for 19 years who plans to run for judge in 2007, he epitomizes the Lancaster County law enforcement establishment’s penchant for playing things close to the vest. It was that impulse that helped spark conflict between the two.


In 2004, fresh on the job, Kirchner told the Sunday News that he thought local law-enforcement agencies were too circumspect for their own good. His comments related to two still-unsolved murders committed in December 2003: that of Baltimore federal prosecutor Jonathan Luna, who had been stabbed 32 times and drowned in a Brecknock Township creek, and “Baby Allison,” the infant whose lifeless body was found in a trash barrel outside of a Strasburg Township Amish school. In both cases, police divulged little information; in the Luna case, even after the penknife used in the stabbing was found, investigators refused to confirm the discovery.


Kirchner said he thought a more open approach might help generate more clues and witnesses. Police, and Totaro, were livid. In a blistering letter to the Sunday News, Totaro — along with Capt. Steven J. McDaniel, then commander of Pennsylvania State Police Troop J in Lancaster; Clay Township Police Chief William Leighty, then-president of the Lancaster County Chiefs of Police Association; and Southern Regional Police Chief John Fiorill, president of Lancaster County Red Rose Lodge 16 of the Fraternal Order of Police — ripped Kirchner for being loose-lipped and heavy-handed at crime scenes, charging he had even compromised some investigations.


Kirchner apologized in writing and pledged to “solve the ‘big mouth’ and ‘talks too much’ problem.” And he began meeting with Totaro, along with county detective Michael Landis, on a regular basis. Things improved.


But in August 2005, some police officers came to Totaro with a complaint. Information about investigations was showing up in local newspapers, inside dirt that, officials believed, had come from a confidential portion of the Lancaster County-Wide Communications Web site.


A little digging around indicated that someone “using a computer log-in password that belonged to the Lancaster County coroner,” as Totaro would subsequently tell the Lancaster New Era, was accessing the confidential Web site between 3 and 11 p.m., hours usually worked by Intelligencer Journal reporters.


Kirchner denied giving out his password: “If I gave it out and [the media] used it, they would know who gave it out. I am not a fool,” he told the New Era. Totaro was unconvinced; but “in light of the problems between the coroner and this office over the past few years,” he said, it would have been a conflict of interest for him to pursue the matter. Instead, he turned it over to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, which launched a grand jury investigation, raiding Kirchner’s East Lampeter Township home in January 2006. The attorney general also sought, and ultimately got, access to four Lancaster Newspapers Inc. computer hard drives, to see whether they were used to access the password-protected Web site.


State officials are prohibited by law from even confirming that there is a grand jury investigation; a spokesman said the proceedings will remain confidential unless they are unsealed by a judge.


“All we can say with any certainty is that the grand jury investigation is continuing, LNP and the Intell continue to believe there was no criminal conduct on the part of any Intell reporters, and we expect some determination from the grand jury in the near future,” said George Werner Jr., an attorney representing Lancaster Newspapers in the case.


Team players




Despite this, said John Fiorill, the head of the local FOP, Totaro and Kirchner are “getting along OK.”


“In any working relationship where you’re dealing with personalities, there will be differences and friction,” said Fiorill, a former Lancaster city cop. “But I think they both recognize that everyone’s part of the same team.”


Which doesn’t mean there aren’t still hard feelings from time to time.


Sources say Kirchner was miffed at being publicly criticized by Totaro in the Blodgett case. Kirchner, who often sends out rambling e-mails he calls “blogs” detailing coroner’s calls and related items, wrote in late November that when the Gift of Life organ donation program contacted him upon Blodgett’s death, he simply didn’t recall that Blodgett had previously been shot, and treated it as the routine natural death it seemed to be.


“Many of you feel Don Totaro and I cross swords all the time,” Kirchner wrote in the missive, sent to local elected officials, members of the media and others, including Totaro. “We do not. I respect him and do not criticize him. I just wish he would not believe that I am the enemy of law enforcement. I am not.”


But last week, Kirchner said the conflict was all in the past. He holds no grudge, and he’s sure Totaro considers both of them to be on the same page.


“And as such, each of us accomplishes our mission.”

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