Barbara Butcher is an expert in medicolegal death investigation and mass fatality management and is currently a consultant for medico-legal death investigation, working with forensic pathologists, attorneys, educators, television producers and mystery writers. She is now writing a book about her most interesting cases.
She is the former Chief of Staff and Director of the Forensic Sciences Training Program at the NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner, where she was responsible for Medicolegal Investigations, Disaster Planning, Fatality Management, WTC 9/11 Victim Recovery, Identifications, Evidence, and Missing Persons. As Deputy Director she coordinated the remains recovery effort after WTC 9/11 and helped manage the response to the crash of Flight 587 that resulted in 265 deaths, and investigated the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
In 2007 she consulted for the World Health Organization in Geneva, working with an international committee of experts to formulate policy and plans for mass casualty/fatality events. Following the 2004 Tsunami, she went to Thailand on behalf of W.H.O. to assist in Victim Identification strategies, and returned to speak on Fatality Management to an international audience convened by the United Nations and W.H.O. In 2011 the Hong Kong government invited her and OCME colleagues to put on a symposium in disaster management for more than 300 officials.
As a medicolegal death investigator at OCME, she investigated more than 5500 death scenes and 680 homicides. She created the Forensic Sciences Training Program at OCME, a National Institute of Justice-funded academy for national training on best practices in death investigation.