Noted Forensic Expert to Help in Foster Death Probe

Nationally known forensic scientist Henry C. Lee is helping Whitewater prosecutors by reviewing the 1993 death of White House lawyer Vincent Foster.

Lee, whose expertise has been sought in prominent trials, such as the O.J. Simpson case, said Friday that he agreed to review the prosecutors’ investigatory reports about Foster’s July, 1993, death to determine if they support the original finding of suicide.

“I think that is the major issue,” Lee said in a telephone interview from his office in Connecticut, where he is the state’s chief forensic scientist.

Lee said he met with Whitewater prosecutors three weeks ago in Washington and thus far he has conducted only an initial examination of some documents. But he said he expected to “use some of my spare time, my weekend time, to assist” the prosecutors.

Mark Touhey, the prosecutor in charge of the Washington office of Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, declined comment Friday through his office.

Lee’s emergence in the case is one more twist in the agonizing review into the death of one of President Clinton’s closest advisers, which twice has been ruled a suicide but still remains under investigation.

Starr appeared close to ending his probe a few months back. But then the prosecutor assigned to the Foster death resigned after lawyers for several witnesses complained about his tough questioning before a grand jury in Washington.

Lee said Touhey contacted him about three weeks ago.

As White House deputy counsel, Foster was in the middle of many of the Clinton Administration’s early problems from health care reform to the White House travel office scandal. His body--gun in hand and with a single wound to his head--was found in a suburban park near Washington on July 20, 1993.

U.S. Park Police ruled Foster’s death a suicide. Whitewater prosecutors opened a review, however, after paramedics who attended the scene publicly questioned the suicide ruling. Prosecutors are also interested in Whitewater documents that were removed from Foster’s office after his death.