Signature: Dr. Edgar Shannon Cooper

AGE: 63

TITLE: Coroner for East Baton Rouge Parish

HOMETOWN: Jacksonville, N.C.

Dr. E. Shannon Cooper served as a U.S. Navy physician during Vietnam—more specifically what he calls “not the exciting part.” Cooper treated returning veterans in several military hospitals across the country, including St. Alban’s in New York City. His youth had been spent similarly, moving every few years with his U.S. Marine Corps father.

It wasn’t until he moved to New Orleans in the late 1970s that Cooper settled down. He was first elected coroner of East Baton Rouge Parish in 2004.

Pathology sparked his interest with the first cadaver he worked with as a med student. It was either dead bodies or live, contagious children. “I caught every earache, cough and sniffle during my pediatric rotation,” he says. “I thought, ‘I’m never going to survive this!’”

Coroners in Louisiana are unique in that they not only determine cause of death but also bring mental health patients into protective custody. Other states operate separate mental health divisions.

Both aspects of the job keep Cooper busy. He’s seen an increase in psych cases since Katrina, on top of more cocaine and prescription drug-induced deaths. Of the 200-plus autopsies his office performed in 2007, 65 were homicides.

“Most are young black males,” Cooper laments. “Black-on-black murder is real common in Baton Rouge.”

In the 1980s Cooper attended night school at Loyola University and earned a law degree. He has never practiced, but that education doesn’t hurt when he is called to court as an expert witness. Cooper maintains a private practice as one of 15 physicians in Pathology Group-Louisiana, and he works at several area hospitals.

A forensic pathologist performs the majority of autopsies, though Cooper does a few himself and often examines crime scenes to begin solving his cases as soon as possible. “Sometimes it’s important to see the scene as it existed,” he says. “But the more people you have at the scene, the better chance of messing something up, so we don’t go until the police are finished. As pathologists, our crime scene is the body.”

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