Dr. Jonathan Lucas, San Diego County’s chief deputy medical examiner, is used to the polarized reactions he gets when he tells people he works with the dead for a living.
“Either they think it’s the most interesting thing in the world, or they find the soonest opportunity to either talk about something else or leave.”
Lucas trained as a forensic pathologist in New York, his time there capped by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He spent three weeks processing victim remains before flying to San Diego.
In his 12 years here, he has never been in the spotlight more than in 2011, when the mysterious deaths of Max Shacknai, 6, and Rebecca Zahau, 32, at Coronado’s Spreckels mansion captured global attention.
