The Strange Case of Lori Kaye Klausutis

The Young Woman Died in Joe Scarborough's Fort Walton Beach Office in 2001

Today, Joe Scarborough is better known as half of the Trump-obsessed duo on Morning Joe and husband of the eye-rolling, shoulder-slouching Mika Brzezinski. Joe Scarborough the pundit is an Act 2 for Joe Scarborough—he started out as a politician and he occasionally ruminates about going back to his previous career.

Back in 2001, Joe Scarborough was the Republican representative in Florida and he maintained a satellite office in Fort Walton Beach, where he employed two staffers. One of them was a 28-year-old woman named Lori Kaye Klausutis. According to Scarborough, he rarely was at the Fort Walton Beach office, dividing his time between Washington D.C. and his family in Florida, although he called in to Fort Walton Beach regularly. Lori was not an intern; she was a paid staffer. She was athletic, pretty, married, and had no children. Her husband, T. J. Klausutis, was a contractor at Eglin Air Force Base and his work often took him out of town. He was out of town on July 19 and 20, 2001.

At about 8:00 in the morning on July 20, 2001, two of Scarborough’s constituents, a married couple named Juanita Marie and Andreas Bergmann, came to the Fort Walton Beach office, ostensibly to meet with Rep. Scarborough about an issue related to a work permit. They had an appointment with Joe Scarborough, who was not there. They found the door to the office open and the lights on, but Lori Klausutis was lying unresponsive on the floor. Mrs. Bergmann, a nurse, then checked Lori’s pulse while her husband called 911.

One question that has never been answered is why Joe Scarborough had scheduled an appointment at 8 a.m. in Fort Walton Beach on July 20 when he was still in Washington, D.C.? Was this just a scheduling mix-up? Or did he leave town suddenly?

There is a lot to say about the guy who did the autopsy on Lori Klausutis. The medical examiner at the time was Dr. Michael Berkland. He was subsequently fired from the job in 2003 because his autopsy reports were usually late. In 2012, Berkland was arrested because when he failed to pay the rent on his storage locker, it was opened and authorities found 100 containers with human body parts being stored there. Interestingly, charges were dismissed. Let’s just say the guy who did the autopsy was a bit … unusual.

But back to July 20, 2001. Dr. Berkland was still in good graces, and he conducted the autopsy that same day, but his behavior was beyond weird. Two police officers witnessed the autopsy and although they reported that the young woman clearly had a cracked skull, Berkland’s autopsy report called it a “closed head” injury, meaning her skull was not damaged. Berkland said she suffered a blow that caused brain damage but did not crack the skull. This is what doctors call a “contre-coup injury.” The idea is that if you suffer a severe blow to the right side of your head, your brain rattles and bangs up against the left side of your skull. A right-sided blow results in a left-sided brain injury. According to Berkland, her skull was intact but she had suffered blunt force trauma to the head.

This meant that she did indeed have a head injury but it was not the kind of injury that might be caused by hitting her over the head with, say, a baseball bat. A contre-coup injury is more consistent with a fall.

Berkland’s verdict differed from what both officers reported. When that news came out, Berkland back-pedaled and admitted there was a “hairline fracture” in her skull but he did not mention it in the autopsy since he thought it might cause “undue speculation.”

Since when do doctors who conduct autopsies concern themselves with how results might be interpreted? His job was to report on what he found, not stage a crime scene.

Then the autopsy was delayed. Although the autopsy was conducted on July 20, Berkland would not release findings right away. On July 22, he said he was waiting on blood test results. (Toxicology came back negative, the young woman only had aspirin in her system.) Then Dr. Berkland disappeared and did not return phone calls. By July 27, he resurfaced, claiming to have been at a conference. By now he had the blood test results but he said he had “no conclusive cause of death.” On August 6, Dr. Michael Berkland issued a press release.

Medical examiners do not typically have press agents or send out press releases. At this time, no autopsy results were published. First came a news release, but later an autopsy was published. Click the link and you can read it.

By then, Dr. Berkland had determined that Klausutis had mitral valve disease, also known as mitral valve prolapse, which triggered a fatal arrhythmia. Berkland figured she lost consciousness, fell and hit her head, and died. It was not the blow to the head that killed her, but rather circulatory collapse due to what doctors call sudden cardiac death. On the other hand, sustained a brain injury did not help, either.

Berkland concluded she died of an arrhythmia. While this is possible, it would be rare. Only about 5% of the population has mitral valve prolapse (this is where the mitral valve does not shut properly so blood that should be pumped efficiently through the heart sometimes backs up and sloshes around), and people with mitral valve prolapse in rare cases can experience a fatal rhythm disorder. Rare, but possible.

The interesting thing about an arrhythmia is that you cannot detect them in an autopsy. It’s not like a gunshot wound. Unless you’re in the hospital wearing a heart monitor or you have a device like a pacemaker with a built-in heart monitor, there is no clear proof to tell if an arrhythmia has occurred. So Berkland’s diagnosis was more of a deduction than an objective fact. However, this is sometimes done in autopsies; arrhythmias do not leave telltale signs in the body, but when all other causes of death can be ruled out, the doctor performing the autopsy might conclude an arrhythmia was the cause of death.

The widower, T. J. Klausutis, resisted media attention and begged authorities for privacy. He did not want further investigation into his wife’s death. He did state in an interview that his wife had some health problems, but he did not elaborate. It is not known if she knew she had mitral valve disease. It is quite possible, even plausible, that a person can have mitral valve prolapse and not know it.

So far, this all sounds strange. But there are other reasons to consider opening an investigation into the 2001 death of Lori Klausutis. (There is no statute of limitations on murder. I’m not saying foul play was involved, but there were many suspicious events and anomalies that have never really been reconciled.)

You have to take her death in context. Here is a timeline.

• Rep. Joe Scarborough from Florida announces in May 2001 that he will be stepping down from his office in September 2001 after four terms in the House of Representatives in order to spend more time with his two sons. This announcement came as a surprise, even to political insiders. At the time he made the announcement, he had just gotten a divorce.

• His sudden resignation was a major surprise and he was going to leave even before his term was up.

• Scarborough was in Washington, D.C. on July 19 and was in Florida on July 20, so he was not in town when Klausutis died. However, no exact timeline was ever established. Even if he were not a suspect (and he was not at the time), setting a timeline for him would be basic police investigation.

• Nor is it clear why Klausutis scheduled an appointment at 8 a.m. for Scarborough on July 20 when he was not going to be in town. Was he supposed to be in town? Or was this a scheduling mistake? Why was Scarborough a no-show for the Bergmanns?

• Around noon on July 20, Joe Scarborough, now in Florida, issued a statement to the press that Lori Klausutis (a woman he claimed to “barely know”) had long-term health problems. He did not specify what those were. It is not clear how he knew health issues of a woman he claimed to barely know. It also seems odd that in the aftermath of her tragic death at the age of just 28, he wanted to get her “health problems” on the record.

• Lori Klausutis was in the office on July 19 and she was found dead on the morning of July 20. But the autopsy makes no mention of the time of death. An odd omission for an autopsy! When investigating a death, the time of death is a crucial bit of information. It is likely she died on July 19.

• Scarborough’s Fort Walton Beach Office was monitored by a security company called D-Train, but they said that on the evening of July 19, the lights in the office were out, the door was locked, and Klausutis’s car was not in the parking lot. But on the morning of July 20, the Bergmanns found the office lights on, the door open, and her body on the floor. Klausutis was already deceased. It has been speculated the security company failed to check on that office on the night of July 19. This discrepancy may have a logical explanation but none was ever officially given.

• The office was near an International House of Pancakes (IHOP) and an employee arriving for the 5 a.m. shift told police that he saw Klausutis’s car in the parking lot and the lights on in the office at 5 a.m.

• It appears that Klausutis died on July 19 but was found July 20. Her husband was out of town, so he did not notice she failed to come home on the night of July 19.

• Dr. Michael Berkland, the wacky medical examiner with the storage locker of body parts, worked for a guy named Stephen Nelson, who was a generous contributor to Scarborough’s campaign. That does not mean anything, unless, of course, it does.

• The autopsy was delayed and Dr. Berkland omitted the part about her having a skull fracture to avoid fueling speculation about foul play. Medical examiners are supposed to report the facts, not worry about their potential legal implications.

• The Klausutis family did not want any investigations.

• On September 6, 2001, Scarborough stepped down from his office in the House of Representatives.

• On September 11, 2001, the national focus shifts with the bombing of the Twin Towers. The strange case of Lori Klausutis disappeared from the headlines.

• It resurfaced in 2003, when Joe Scarborough appeared on Don Imus’s radio show and joked about “having sex with an intern and having to kill her.” It was Imus who said that but Joe laughed and said, “What are you going to do?” Listen for yourself.

The case of Lori Kaye Klausutis has been mostly forgotten. The family did not press for further investigations, and they said they wanted their privacy. Her death was tragic. She died far too young. But any time a person dies unexpectedly and the nearest and dearest to that person do not want to find out what really happened… that seems suspicious to me.

Now some people have suggested that Lori Klausutis was in what is considered a high-risk job, namely she worked for a politician in “constituent services.” Even back in 2001, constituents can become unruly, combative, and even violent when they don’t get their way. Constituents may or may not make appointments, so somebody might have shown up “off the books” on July 19 and found Klausutis alone and unable to fulfill the demands the constituent had. As far as I can figure out, nobody has ever investigated this angle, either.