Interest in the Dead Became His Life Work

Not many 27-year-olds would choose to face mortality every day, but Christopher S. Brown has long felt at ease with the dead.

An embalmer by trade, Brown credits his unusual interest to his days as an altar boy at funeral Masses and the encouragement of a family friend in the Orange County coroner’s office.

Brown’s frame is husky and his pale skin shows the telltale trait of someone who spent his days in a chilled basement laboratory alone. Yet his ruddy cheeks hint at good humor.

But Chris Brown--recently fired from his $33,000-a-year job as director of the Willed Body Program at UC Irvine--has little to laugh about. He is at the center of a district attorney’s embezzlement investigation, suspected of selling parts of donated cadavers for personal profit. His blue eyes seem to recede into dark circles brought on by long nights wondering how to keep up payments on the Tustin condominium he shares with his wife, Venus.

He vehemently asserts his innocence, contending that his supervisors at UCI knew what he was doing.

In his first detailed interview since word of the investigation broke, Brown also claimed the university is setting him up for a fall after he allegedly blew the whistle last year on the Southwest Mortuary Service. That Anaheim mortuary transport company, hired by UC Irvine to scatter cremated remains into the Pacific Ocean, was revealed to have stockpiled the ashes of 40 people who donated their bodies to science.

Now, Brown and his lawyers contend, the university is retaliating against him for exposing previous flaws in its Willed Body Program--in which about 70 people a year donate their bodies for use in medical education and research.

“I’ve whistle-blown one too many times,” Brown said last week. “I’ve asked one too many questions. . . . I just want to say my name will be cleared. I will be vindicated. All the information the university has in the [Willed Body Program] computer will clear my name.”

University officials declined to respond to the retaliation claim. But last year they said it was an employee of Southwest Mortuary Service, not Brown, who tipped them off to the stockpiled ashes. This account was confirmed at the time by the company’s owner.

Flanked by his two civil attorneys at their Playa del Rey offices, Brown talked to The Times at length this week about his education, his background and how the ongoing scandal is personally affecting him. However, he and his lawyers declined to discuss the current allegations against him, including the possible mishandling of ashes and his apparent connection to outside businesses that profited from the program he ran.

It’s hard to balance out Brown’s story, which is so much at odds with the university’s account that the versions seem irreconcilable.

After releasing an initial flurry of claims leading up to Brown’s dismissal, university officials say they will no longer discuss him, on the advice of the Orange County district attorney’s office. Likewise, those investigators decline to discuss their investigation into Brown.

This much is known:

In January, the university began a routine audit of its Anatomy and Neurobiology Department that raised some concerns, officials have said. Based on those concerns and other information, officials focused their efforts on auditing the Willed Body Program.

That audit revealed a questionable sale of half a dozen cadaver spines to an Arizona hospital for $5,000--a check that never showed up in university accounts. Instead of being made payable to the university, the check was made out to University Health Services, a company owned by Jeffrey Frazier.

Frazier--who has declined to comment on the investigation--also owned Harry’s Transport, a cadaver transportation company that did work for the Willed Body Program. Harry’s Transport, in which Brown also owned an interest for a time, billed the university $10,338 between November 1998 and June 1999 for delivering cadavers to be cremated, ferrying specimens to other schools and offices and scattering remains at sea, according to university records. Brown has said that he ended his affiliation with Harry’s when he realized it might pose a conflict of interest.

While Harry’s appeared to bill the university for delivering about 30 cadavers to Roosevelt Memorial Park Assn. in Gardena, park general manager Kathleen Esparza said paperwork shows that most of the boxes contained body parts, not full cadavers. She has shared her observations with district attorney investigators.

A third company owned by Frazier, a tutoring company called Replica Notes, also may have profited from use of university cadavers. Officials say Replica held dissection classes for premedical students in Brown’s laboratory last year though they were not authorized by UCI and the university apparently was never compensated.

Small Mortuary a Start

Brown would not divulge names of his close family members and friends, seeking to shield them from public attention. Brown describes a typical upbringing as one of two sons reared in Long Beach, Huntington Beach and Los Alamitos by parents in the travel business. He attended Catholic schools and says he still goes to church.

His hobbies include reading science fiction, listening to music and collecting anything related to the movie “Planet of the Apes.” Comic books and toys, including “Star Wars” figures in their original boxes, round out his collections.

Brown’s past employers either did not remember him or opted not to talk about him. At the university, his condominium complex and his high school, Brown seemed to float through almost unnoticed.

At St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower, Brown was a better-than-average student, recalled Assistant Principal James Cross. Not an academic or athletic standout in a school of 900, the young man played clarinet and dabbled in percussion in the band. He participated in drama productions on stage and behind the scenes. His sophomore year, Brown took home a religion award. He didn’t have discipline problems.

“He was kind of the wallflower, the kid on the side” Cross remembered. “He was involved in drama, but never as a star. . . . He was always smiling too. I don’t remember him as a mean-spirited kid. I don’t remember him as anything but helpful. I’m surprised he’s in any sort of trouble. That makes me really sad.”

Cross paused a moment. “When you talk to him,” he added, “send him my best. Tell him I’ll say a prayer for him.”

During his sophomore year, Brown met his future wife, Venus Mikulich. By senior year, they were steadies.

After high school, Brown pursued his dream of becoming an embalmer, enrolling in Cypress College’s mortuary science program, graduating in 1991. He worked his way up from small mortuaries to Westminster Memorial Park to the helm of UC Irvine’s Willed Body Program in 1996.

There, he handled the upkeep of donated cadavers and was on call at all hours in case a donor passed away in the night. Brown ensured that skeletons used in science and medical classes were in good repair, promoted outreach programs and served as an assistant in medical school anatomy labs.

UCI professor Leonard Kitzes taught some of those labs, aided by Brown. He was struck by the young man’s friendly demeanor and open smile.

“He was always very helpful,” Kitzes said. “If I needed to get some twine that we use, he’ be very happy to get it. . . . He certainly wouldn’t strike anyone as some nefarious character.”

Brown’s great-aunt, a nun in El Monte, remembers how proud he was when he got the Irvine job, how they would talk about the ethics of working with donors and their families.

Now, Sister Marilee Davis said, Brown’s family is hurting and unable to imagine that the young man they say through first communion and marriage could be charged with wrongdoing.

“Coming out of 40 years of teaching young people, I think I would have sensed it if he was doing something wrong,” she said. “I just couldn’t imagine it, there’s almost an innocence about him. . . . I’ve told him, ‘All you can do is pray, be very honest and answer all the questions and things will work out.’ In the meantime, there’s a lot of suffering.”

Not in It for Money

While others might get the willies working among the dead, Brown said he viewed his job as a service--a way to care for the deceased and ensure that future doctors received the medical training that they need.

“I’ve never thought of my job as creepy or ghoulish,” he said, crossing his thick hands, unadorned except for a simple gold wedding band. “It’s a calling--almost like the priesthood. . . . Interacting with the families of donors who gave their bodies to science--that’s the ultimate gift. It’s a pleasure working for and with them.”

University officials have previously acknowledged that Brown’s $33,000 salary was less than his skills might fetch elsewhere, but Brown saw the post as a logical step to becoming a funeral director or a coroner’s investigator. “It was never for the money,” he said. “It was for the work.”

Married for a few years, Brown and his wife, a homemaker and student, bought their three-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath Tustin condominium for $112,000 in 1997, property records show.

Now the two are relying on financial support from family and friends to keep afloat. Even if his name is cleared, Brown said, it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to continue working in his chosen field.

“Chris and his wife are totally upset,” said one of his lawyers, Stephen Warren Solomon. “They can’t sleep at nights. This is totally inconceivable. The university terminated his economic income, terminated him without just cause. Basically they’re discriminating against him for doing his job.”

Brown made an awkward stab at humor. “But, how ‘bout that high-stress diet? I’ve lost 18 pounds in a week.”

He turned serious, and his shoulders seemed to sag beneath the psychic weight of the district attorney’s investigation and the university scandal.

“My whole life was geared for this, from the end of high school to now,” he said, his voice now raspy with emotion. “It was all aiming toward this one career. It’s gone now.”

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Staff writer Peter M. Warren and contributed to this story.