Submitted by: Donna Stephens, donnals@uca.edu on 04/08/2025
Rob Moritz, a Lecturer I in Journalism, has written a biography of his grandfather, who was a pioneer in forensic pathology, that was recently published by CRC Press (Taylor & Francis Group). Dr. Alan R. Moritz and Forensic Pathology: Tales That Dead Men Tell, recounts the career of Dr. Moritz (1899-1986), using personal papers and correspondence, interviews, newspaper accounts and other sources, including archived materials from Harvard Medical School, the Rockefeller Foundation, Case Western Reserve and the University Hospitals of Cleveland.
The biography details many of his grandfather’s investigative techniques and research findings that are still used today. High-profile investigations Dr. Moritz worked on are also detailed, including the death of actor George Reeves, television’s first Superman; the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; the Sam Shepherd case, the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, the Attica prison riots and the Texas Tower fire, to name a few.
Moritz also details a number of his grandfather’s first-hand accounts of some history’s darkest moments, including a lynching during the “Red Summer” of 1919, the rise of Nazi Germany and the death of a black dissident during the Apartheid-era in South Africa.
The book is available on Amazon, Routledge, the UCA Bookstore and at various other bookstores.