Monday, December 23, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Medical examiner doubles as rocker

County employee a one-man band

Gary Telgenhoff, a Clark County medical examiner, looks at a microscopic sampling of human tissue in his office on Friday. Photo by Jeff Scheid. Click the link below to download a sample of Skinner Rat's music. www.reviewjournal.com/ special/skinnerrat.mp3 (WARNING: 1.3 MB file download)

By day, Gary Telgenhoff speaks for the dead, performing autopsies in Clark County to determine cause and manner of death.

By night, he rocks.

Telgenhoff, 45, is a lifelong musician who also serves as a one-man rock band -- a dark rock entity known as Skinner Rat.

His first CD consists of brooding, Alice Cooperlike tunes, including "Speak For You," a track featured on an episode of the CBS-TV show "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."

"I compose the songs on my keyboards; I record them on a computer, lay down the drum tracks, the bass; I sing," Telgenhoff said. "This is my release, my passion."

Telgenhoff said his fascination with music started at a young age growing up in a small town in Michigan. His mother bought him his first Beatles record.

"I would play the grooves off it," Telgenhoff said. "I memorized every damned song, every lyric. It was the only record I had."

What followed was a lifelong passion for the drums. He played in bar bands through college and infiltrated the music scene that emerged in Michigan in the 1970s.

Telgenhoff cites Blue Oyster Cult, Pink Floyd, the Alan Parsons Project and Ozzy Osbourne as influences.

As Telgenhoff's career in music progressed, however, he learned the downside of the business.

"One band led to another and another and another, and eventually I ended up in a traveling type of band, a small trio, that ended up playing canned cover tunes," he said.

"We ended up playing Holiday Inns and hotels, motel chains. It was a good living for me. I didn't have any bills; all the hotels were free -- nice free lifestyle," Telgenhoff said. "But eventually I realized I'm going to get old, and I'm probably not going to be able to do this when I'm 50. This is just not going to work anymore. I could see if I'm not going to break in, I don't want to end up a vagabond."

Telgenhoff, who always had had an interest and aptitude in science, decided to go to medical school.

"I like to know how stuff works," he says.

But an internship in a hospital made it clear that a career as a traditional doctor was not for him. He then gravitated toward pathology, which got him interested in forensic work.

He now works as a medical examiner at the coroner's office and performs about 350 autopsies a year.

His approach to the job: "Regarding the body, you've got parts, they are all accounted for, and this goes to that," Telgenhoff said. "You turn that on and these two other things happen, but if that happens, you've got to watch out for this.

"It's fascinating," he said.

The job obviously is a morbid one, but Telgenhoff is used to it. "I've always been fascinated by death, and to a certain degree I think we all are," he said. "I think it is a normal interest."

The name for his project is taken from behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner, who used electrodes to conduct lab tests on rats. Skinner's tests demonstrated the influence of pain, pleasure, punishment and reward, findings which Telgenhoff believes are sufficient to explain all animal and human behavior.

He has performed autopsies in some of Southern Nevada's most fascinating criminal cases, including that of Brookey West.

West was convicted of murder in the death of her mother, whose decomposing body was found in a container in a Las Vegas storage shed.

Telgenhoff also performed the autopsy on Panamanian boxer Pedro Alcazar, who died after a fight in Las Vegas in June.

Last year, he appeared in a commercial broadcast nationally, detailing how the club drug Ecstasy killed a young Las Vegas woman. And he did the preliminary death investigation for bassist John Entwistle of The Who, found dead in his hotel room earlier this year at the Hard Rock.

"I take my responsibilities and my job very seriously," Telgenhoff said.

He said the tragedy he sees every day has found its way into at least some of his music, which can be sampled at skinnerrat.com. The lyrics of "Speak for You" are a perfect match for "CSI," as well as for the intricacies of Telgenhoff's career:

"Just one last chance before you go/You hold the secrets and I must know/Just one last chance to right the wrong/Before the clues are all buried and gone."