Albany

America's most famous death detective returned Monday to the city where he did some of his most prominent work.

Dr. Michael Baden appeared before a law enforcement conference at the State Police Academy and spoke on a worrying trend: America's dearth of forensic pathologists means countless murders may go unsolved or bodies may need exhuming.

A Justice Department report found the United States needs twice the number of pathologists it has now. Only 500 practicing pathologists handle the approximately 500,000 deaths per year that are referred for investigation, according to the National Association of Medical Examiners.

Despite the popularity of crime dramas, few medical students are eager to enter the macabre field of forensic pathology. Roughly 1,400 people have been certified in the field in the last five decades, according to the 2012 Justice Department report. The shortage means those who become pathologists must contend with a massive workload.

The number of properly conducted autopsies has plummeted as a result, Baden said. In 1980, 17 percent of bodies were autopsied, but fewer than 5 percent are today, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows.

"This has led to an increase in the number of exhumations requested by police agencies," Baden said, calling death statistics in America "pitiful."

Having someone without the right certifications do the job can lead to shoddy detective work, an investigation found. In 2011, ProPublica, PBS Frontline and National Public Radio reported that more than 1 in 5 physicians working in America's busiest morgues are not board-certified in forensic pathology.

Even pathologists who work in hospitals may not be right for the job, Baden said. Most U.S. pathologists are trained for natural deaths, but a forensic pathologist looks to different parts of the body. Baden said that instead of focusing on hearts, lungs and brains, they look at skin: Is there trauma, bruising, gunpowder burn or trace evidence such as semen, hair or blood?

In 1991, Baden examined civil rights leader Medgar Evers' exhumed body at Albany Medical Center. Baden determined the bullet holes in Evers' body could only have been made by a rifle. This evidence in the 1963 slaying, in tandem with fingerprints on the killer's rifle and new witness accounts, helped convict Byron De La Beckwith at his third trial, after two hung juries, in 1994.

Baden's high-profile cases included John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nicole Brown Simpson, and both Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

He spoke to a crowd of law enforcement personnel from 29 states and countries, including Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. The lecture was part of the Col. Henry F. Williams International Homicide Seminar, which organizers said has led to solving numerous cold cases.

"The stranger murders," Baden said, "are still the most difficult."

jlawrence@timesunion.com • 518-454-5467 • @jplawrence3