Police Reopen Case in Death of Paisley’s 2nd Wife

WASHINGTON — Police officials in Seattle are reviewing the 1968 death of the second wife of Melvyn R. Paisley, the former assistant Navy secretary who is a central figure in the nationwide Pentagon contract scandal.

The case is being reopened by the King County Police Department after a review of coroner’s records and phone calls from several witnesses who want to talk to detectives, said Maj. Terry Allman, head of criminal investigations.

“The red flags just popped up,” Allman said.

Allman said the decision to re-examine evidence in the 20-year-old case was prompted by inquiries from the press and other people in recent weeks as a result of Paisley’s prominence in the Pentagon fraud investigation. Officials will seek to resolve “inconsistencies” in the original coroner’s report, he said, noting that there were “some differences of opinion” among some people involved in the case.

“Some people felt that this death was other than accidental,” Allman said.

Evidence ‘Inconclusive’

The May 8, 1968, death of Mary Lou Paisley was ruled an accident based on “inconclusive and incomplete” evidence, said Dr. Donald Reay, the current King County chief medical examiner. Reay said the coroner’s office had relied primarily on statements by Melvyn Paisley in determining the cause of death.

“I don’t see that someone could reasonably make that determination of accidental death,” said Reay, who reviewed a confidential autopsy report and coroner’s records. “This is really speculation, not fact. . . .”

Paisley’s attorney, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr. of Washington, D.C., criticized the King County police for reopening the case. “It just is unfortunate that they are likely to waste their valuable time and resources on an accident that occurred 20 years ago,” Barcella said.

Paisley, 63, a Boeing Co. executive for 28 years before he resigned in 1981 to work for then Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr., has emerged as a key figure in the federal investigation into bribery and fraud in the nation’s defense contracting system.

Government sources have told The Times that Paisley, as a private defense consultant, allegedly had access to classified materials smuggled out of the Pentagon. Paisley’s fourth wife, Vicki, is suspected of helping copy these documents to help contractors gain lucrative military work, sources said.

King County Sheriff James Montgomery said investigators are searching old files for any photographs, sketches or police reports, and are interviewing sheriff’s deputies and detectives who handled the case two decades ago.

Wife Unconscious

According to records in the medical examiner’s office, Melvyn Paisley found his wife unconscious on a bathroom floor in their home in rural Kent, near Seattle. She was pronounced dead on arrival nearly an hour later at Valley General Hospital.

Paisley told authorities that he and his wife of six years had an alcoholic drink together at 10:30 p.m. before going to bed. He said his wife also took two powerful sleeping pills prescribed for him. Paisley said he awoke at 2:30 a.m. and noticed that his wife was not in bed and saw a light in the smallest of five bathrooms in the sprawling house.

“He investigated and found his wife lying face down with her face in some towels that he stated contained carbon tetrachloride,” the original medical examiner’s report said. “He said that she apparently had been restless and got up and was painting pictures and was cleaning up her brushes when she apparently was overcome by the fumes.”

The cause of death was listed as lung congestion and “drug hypersensitivity” with a question mark typed on the coroner’s report. Laboratory tests revealed no traces of sleeping pills, alcohol or carbon tetrachloride in Mary Lou Paisley’s blood, Reay said. He added that tests may not have been sensitive enough to detect small amounts.

“My review of the materials,” Reay said, “causes me to pause and say, ‘I’m not sure I would have drawn the same conclusion on the same information that was developed.’ ”

The pathologist who wrote the coroner’s report, Dr. Gale E. Wilson, died two years ago, but many detectives and patrol officers who worked on the case are still living in the Seattle area.