People v. Derr

Life is short — shorter for some than others.

Dennis Oberbeck’s life was cut short on August 14, 1992, at the age of 43, when he succumbed to the kind of trauma that most men can easily survive. Oberbeck’s .377 blood-alcohol level at the time of his death might well have proved lethal all by itself. However, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy upon Oberbeck’s body felt that death was caused by more than alcohol poisoning. Superficial abrasions over Oberbeck’s right eye and about his upper lip, markings that appeared to be the product of someone’s fists, led the medical examiner to…