World-renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Werner Spitz dies at 97 in Metro Detroit home

FOX 2 (WJBK) - Iconic forensic pathologist Doctor Werner Spitz has died. Spitz, 97, died of natural causes in his St. Clair Shores home overnight.

The former medical examiner from Metro Detroit was known for his work on high-profile cases - including the investigations of the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

He also testified at the trials of Casey Anthony and Phil Spector, the 1996 civil trial against O. J. Simpson, and consulted on the investigation of JonBenét Ramsey's 1996 death.

Werner Spitz was born in 1926 to a Jewish family in Stargard, Germany, now Stargard, Poland.

Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel knew Spitz from his time in law enforcement. Hackel is the former Macomb County Sheriff.

"This guy was an icon before his time," Hackel told FOX 2. "I started in 1981 and got to know Dr. Spitz doing these autopsies. He had a cult of personality not just with those of us in law enforcement but I think even the general public knew who he was because of his genuine nature about caring about these crime scenes, and these individuals that he was looking at, to find out exactly what happened to them."

Spitz was a professor of pathology at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan and an adjunct professor of pathology at the University of Windsor in Ontario.

Spitz began his foray into high-profile cases in 1969 testifying for Joseph and Gwen Kopechne, the parents of Mary Jo Kopechne - who died in the Chappaquiddick crash where Ted Kennedy was driving. His testimony helped her parents in their effort to keep their daughter's body from being exhumed and autopsied.

In 1970, while Spitz was involved in "The Keepers" case best-known from the Netflix documentary series. Spitz found that Catholic nun Cathy Cesnik was murdered by a blow to the head, when he was a medical examiner in Maryland.

In 1975 he reviewed the autopsy of John F. Kennedy (saying the autopsy was botched, but agreeing that Kee Harvey Oswald was the gunman)while in 1979 he performed the same work on the Martin Luther King Jr. autopsy (solidifying the findings that James Earl Ray killed MLK).

In 2011 he took part in the Casey Anthony trial in the death of her daughter, testifying for the defense.

In 2016, Spitz took part in a documentary investigating the death of Jon Benet Ramsey.