The Cold Case against Dr. Mercer

Update, April 5, 2008: Following the Court of Appeals' decision, which reversed the dismissal of the murder charge and reinstated the murder case against Dr. Mercer, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case.

On May 7, 2008, the Michigan Supreme Court will hear arguments on this case. The question is: when there is a pre-arrest delay in bringing a prosecution, what is the test for deciding whether the delay was so long that it violated the defendant's right to a fair trial? It looks as though the Supreme Court is gearing up to write a landmark decision in this area of law. To read the Supreme Court's order scheduling the matter: Supreme Court Order re: State v Mercer

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A caveat: It is important to point out that journalists can get a lot of things wrong. Sometimes media reports are skewed or just plain inaccurate, and the rush to get out a story about a "hot" murder case can introduce errors that are repeated as fact. There is good reason why certain evidence is or is not admitted into a particular case. Anyone sitting in judgment on this case ought to consider that media reports are never subject to cross-examination, and they should never rely on what they read on the internet. That said, this is a summary with links to early media accounts of the case against Dr. Charles Mercer.

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Charles William Mercer, D.O., is a prominent Michigan surgeon with nearly five decades of experience in the medical profession. He is in active practice at the Ingham Regional Medical Center in Lansing, the capitol of Michigan, where he supervises interns on surgical rotations (source), runs a private practice at Capitol Internal Medicine Associates, donates to medical education charities (source) and is active in the Michigan State Medical Society (source) and the American Academy of Specialists in Surgery (source).

But according to the Ingham County prosecutor, he is also a murderer.

Dr. Mercer, 72, was arrested this week for killing his wife Sally on February 27, 1968 in Okemos. The death was originally ruled a case of Bulbar polio, a terrible form of polio virus that affects the brain and lungs and is usually fatal in adults.

Sally Mercer's death investigation was reopened by a cold case squad nearly ten years ago and included exhumation and a second autopsy. So far, local investigators are mum about the details of the prosecution's theory of the case, and the judge has clamped down on pretrial publicity, though it hasn't stopped the lawyers from speaking about the case. It appears that Dr. Mercer will posit that the original autopsy findings were correct -- his wife died of polio, not violence or poison or whatever it is that the prosecutor will contend took her life.

Dr. Mercer may go on trial later this year. Can you say "battle of the experts"?

For more:

Contempt Request Denied in 1968 Murder Case http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/business/index.ssf?/base/news-35/1149716054301550.xml&storylist=mibusiness

Info challenged in probe of '68 death

http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060608/NEWS01/606080347/1001/opinion

UPDATE, June 14 -- The district court judge has released the transcript of a closed hearing on the case. According to a summary by the Detroit Free Press, the evidence against the physician will include "a handwritten plea from Sally Mercer to look at her husband if anything happened to her," the testimony of a friend that she feared for her life, postmortem photos of bruises that are purported to be defense wounds, evidence that the doctor may have been carrying on with another woman who subsequently became the second Mrs. Mercer, and expert testimony that the cause of death was a massive injection of propoxyphene, an opiate painkiller sold under the name Darvon. It certainly looks as though the case will be factually complex and it is quite possible some of this evidence might not be admitted into the record at trial.

The Lansing State Journal has a similar description of the evidence here.

UPDATE: August 10 -- The judge has issued a ruling that a letter from the victim, in which she said she feared her husband would kill her, will not come into evidence. (In Michigan, such cases are initially handled in the district court. If there's enough evidence, the case is transferred to a circuit court judge for further proceedings.) For details, see this article from the Lansing State Journal.

UPDATE: Sept. 11 -- The defense team seems to be winning a lot of evidentiary motions. This week, the same judge ruled against admitting evidnece of remarks made by the defendant:

Aquilina ruled that comments prosecutors say Mercer made while performing surgery about the use of a drug as a means of committing a perfect crime can't be used. And she barred some testimony involving a pathologist.

Read the rest of the article in the Detroit Free Press: Judge says remarks can't be used in physician's rial.

Comments

[Josie Peterson]

I worked at the hospital when this event happened.

[Soobs]

I knew Dr. Mercer (we used to refer patients to him, and vice versa) in the '90s. I can't believe it, as he is/was very nice. I'll be keeping an eye on this story.

[Anonymous]

My husband and I have known Bill Mercer for years. He is a wonderful man and it would be very difficult to believe that he did this. He may have had an affair, as he likes pretty women, but I don't think he could have killed his wife. He only spoke fondly of his wife as the mother of his children. After reading the articles; I thought for sure he was guilty. Still, after speaking with him, my mind began to wonder if something else could have happened.

I only hope after all the evidence has been plastered everywhere; that he can get a fair trial.

[anonymous]

I knew the family well. I knew the little children, I knew the parents. I knew his partners, I knew Mrs. Sally Mercer. I heard how the second Mrs. Mercer became the second, taken from her home while holding a gun, and so soon after his wife's death, it was whispered. This guy was nuts.

EVERYONE KNEW HE KILLED HIS WIFE.
I was a young teen. I lived very, very near. I was horrified that the children continued to live with him, unable to imagine what he had done, fearing that they did imagine. They were his victims too. The baby, alone with a dead mother, the little girl, arriving home from school to find her, as I recall. No one said a thing to them except sympathy, but everyone watched them. And we were not at ease with some of the things we saw.

As a child, myself, the whole thing shocked me to the core and has never left my mind. It was tangible how the wives and the kids in Okemos were shaken by this example of how vulnerable one could be where no one looked too closely. Where no one acted on what they knew.

I knew doctors that beat their wives, other parents took in children who fled, bloodied, from their homes to any neighbor, and refused to return them to drunken parents until they sobered up and had a "talk" behind closed doors. We all knew.

This was the era of Camalot in Okemos. And men still ruled. And those of us that lived in Okemos knew it was not a haven, it was a disguise. Those pretty neighborhoods held all the same grim reality as any inner city street of desperation. But the police were greeted at doors by attorneys. They returned running children to parents that the CPS would have taken away, now.
Everyone knew.

Most people just took another drink and looked away. Kids hid other kids. Helped cover up their rage. Wives contrived shopping trips to Detroit to get out of town, to a doctor who did not know them. They often went in scarves and sunglasses, one driving, one bruised. But we all knew.

The people who have written in to say they cant believe it, likely do not even remember that era. On the trembling cusp of change, we were not yet extricated from a time when people did not divorce, from a time when children obeyed unable to question, from a time when the first and last words were from the men. A time before "the burning bed" (also an Ingham county story), when it was not illegal to beat your family. A time when there really was no place to turn for help, that anyone knew.

Ironically, though it was long ago and far away, I was telling this story just the other day to someone here, giving this example for the millionth time in my life as why I know the American Dream is a myth. Why I scoff at people who imagine that only the poor endure crime. Why the nicest towns are usually just the most silent. The next day, someone who had also lived in Okemos at the time and I were chatting and this was mentioned, that he was finally charged.

I am in my 50s, older than the parents were then. I have thought about this crime for all these years. There will never be justice for so many of my friends who must have carried wounds into adulthood. For wives that drank themselves to death or to disgraced divorce. But they got this one. And my mind is more at ease.

Imagine that, defenders, it was very real to us. It touched a lot of lives.
Rest in peace, Sally. Its a different time now, as everyone knows.

[john stengel]

sally mercer was in our weddind in 1955! do you have any current information?

[anonymous]

The doctor that diagnosed polio must have been covering up for his friend, Dr. Mercer

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know how the children, now grown-ups, are handling all this and are they standing by their dad?

[anonymous]

I can tell you that the older daughter died in 1998 while in a drug rehab center. It kind of makes me wonder what caused her to turn to drugs - the loss of her mother or the fact that her father probably did it. The younger daughter, who was 2 at the time of the murder, is standing by her dad. I am appalled that one person (the pathologist who said it was polio) had so much power that no one could challenge his opinion and get a second autopsy or tissue samples or something. If the investigators were so convinced that it was homicide why did they not fight like crazy to get another examination of the body. No one should have that much power!!

[Katie]

What a truly intense case. I sincerely hope that justice is done. How horrible, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up reading all of these comments.

[leemoates@bellsouth.net]

I have just read about this cold case in Reader's
Digest.....I am appalled that this man has gotten away with murder for all these years. Maybe soon justice will prevail for Sally who didn't deserve to die. My heart goes out to her and to her two daughters that missed out on having their mother to raise them.....How SAD!!

I worked at the hospital also at that time of Sally's death. As I recall, there was a rumor that she had committed suicide. We all knew about the Bill's affair with Michelle. Many years later, around 1978 or 1979 I recall having seen Michelle at an Alanon meeting. I recall thinking that this proved to me that Bill was an alcoholic and that Michelle had better watch out for her own life. I never believed he was innocent and I still believe he killed Sally, one way or the other.

If I were an athiest how sad and disheartening it would be to think about this man very likely escaping any penalty for this crime. That holds true for the deceased pathologist, as well as the deceased father of Dr. (sic) Mercer. But there is a judge of the universe who holds all accountable, and death by no means ensures an escape from justice. Contrariwise, it ushers one into His inescapable presence and from there there is no escape, no tricky defense tactics, no legal manuevering, no corrupt and inept judges. While God gave his son so that we here in this life could be redeemed if we only TRULY repent, that same Jesus will be the judge before whom all must kneel at that day and the time for mercy will be past. God will not wink at Dr. Mercer's horrific sins.

[bebe from FL]

Wow! Sarah is standing by her father because she can not possibly remember what happened to her. She is, in a way, brain-washed. To not stand by her father would mean to give up the only security and "truth" she remembers. It's kind of like what happened with O.J.'s kids. I pray justice will be served on earth, but if
not, rest assured it will be served in heaven. There's no escape from God's judgement. Maybe this is a wake-up call for some of us. There are moments when we do need to speak up, regardless of the consequences.

[jeffrey lawrence]

per sept. readers digest,trial was to take place in sept of 2007. did it take place and,if so,what was the outcome?

[Sue]

The trial is when??? Thought this was going to trial long before this. The man has been free for nearly 40 years, too bad MI doesn't have the death penalty, he can't possibly serve that much time in prison. He is an evil monster and his daughter Sara is under his spell.

when is this trial going to take place? Has it already taken place? What was the outcome?

[Connie Bowling]

I found this on the internet, it is going to the Michigan Supreme Court May 7

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080402/NEWS01/804020388

[Laura]

Thanks for this link.

As a Michigan lawyer, I am amazed that the Supreme Court is hearing this.

I tried to find a copy of the Court of Appeals decision online http://courtofappeals.mijud.net/resources/ts.htm
and strangely, it is not there....

Laura

[Laura]

Ah, I have found it and will update this post.

[kat]

It seems this has been a long time coming. I was a very good of Cindys, Sally's oldest daughter, for years. She had her suspicions, and it is unfair that she is no longer here to voice her opinions or what she may recall.

[lollie]

I knew Bill (Dr. Charles William Mercer) in grade school and high school. He may be smart. Doctors usually are. But he was never not wise at all. Now, about his lawyer: Smart? Wise?

[Unknown]

Anyone can be forgiven. Assuming he is Guilty. God will be the final judge. His apostoles were sinners and even murders.