By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY — The four sons of the late John and Joyce Sheridan, who died in their home on Meadow Drive on Sept. 28, 2014, are determined not to allow their father’s reputation to be tarnished by allegations that he killed their mother and then killed himself.
Mark, Dan, Tim and Matthew Sheridan released a 15-page affidavit prepared by pathologist Michael Baden, a former chief medical examiner of the City of New York, on Tuesday, according to published reports. The document was prepared by Dr. Baden in December 2015.
Mr. Sheridan, who was the president and CEO of Cooper Helath System, allegedly stabbed his wife to death, set the bedroom on fire and then killed himself, according to the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office. It was ruled a murder-suicide.
The sons have never believed in the murder-suicide scenario, and challenged former Prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano’s ruling. Dr. Baden’s affidavit was prepared at their request and submitted to the acting state medical examiner in an effort to change the cause of death on Mr. Sheridan’s death certificate from “suicide” to “undetermined.”
Dr. Baden performed an autopsy on Mr. Sheridan and an external examination of Mrs. Sheridan in October 2014.
The affidavit pokes holes in the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office’s murder-suicide findings. It contends that a “third person” was responsible for their deaths and also for the fire that was set in the bedroom after they were killed.
“The forensic evidence is consistent with an individual wearing gloves, entering the house through an unlocked door to intentionally harm the Sheridans or to commit a burglary that went awry, murdered the Sheridans and set a fire to destroy the evidence,” Dr. Baden wrote.
“In my professional experience, fire is extremely unusual in cases of suicide,” he wrote, adding that there were no indicators that Mr. Sheridan was considering suicide, despite claims that he was upset about conditions at work.
Also, in suicidal deaths, the weapons used are recovered at the death scene, Dr. Baden wrote. This is not always true in homicidal deaths. The knife that Mr. Sheridan allegedly used to kill himself was not found at the crime scene.
In his affidavit, Dr. Baden wrote that there is no DNA evidence to support the ruling that Mr. Sheridan killed his wife. Swabs taken from the knife used to kill Mrs. Sheridan contain DNA “of an unknown male,” and not Mr. Sheridan. There is no evidence of blood transfer from Mrs. Sheridan to Mr. Sheridan, which suggests that he did not stab his wife.
Dr. Baden also wrote that the stab wounds suffered by Mr. Sheridan were not superficial, as the Prosecutor’s Office claimed. None of the knives recovered at the scene were used to stab Mr. Sheridan, who also suffered “blunt force injuries” which would have resulted from being struck across the chest with a fire poker recovered in the bedroom, he wrote.
