Dr. Bradley Mays, chief of surgery at Columbia St. Mary’s Mequon hospital, was found dead in his bed July 21. He was only 44 years old, physically active and said to be in good health. He had easy access to the highest quality medical care and certainly would have been able to judge any problems in his own body. These circumstances alone make the death suspicious and called for an aggressive investigation. What followed, instead, was anything but.

Mays’ blood relatives suspect he was killed. Their spokesperson has been the doctor’s brother, Truman Mays, and their suspicions have led them to hire the state’s best criminal attorney, Stephen Hurley of Madison. It’s taken Hurley only a few weeks to blow gaping holes in the official version of Mays’ death.

Ozaukee County used Kenosha County Medical Examiner Mary Mainland to conduct an autopsy and determine cause of death. Her conclusion was that Mays died naturally of something called "hypertrophic cardiomyopathy." But that conclusion is being ridiculed by Barry Maron, a Minneapolis physician regarded as a global expert on the disease. Maron says the disease always involves a massive enlargement of the heart and that was not present in Mays’ death. Both Maron and a Kentucky forensic pathologist hired by the Mays family also took note of "froth" in Brad Mays’ lungs. They claim this is not consistent with the heart condition but would indicate either drug use or asphyxiation.

The story gets even more suspicious. Mainland, the Kenosha medical examiner, recently quit her job to take a position in Tampa, Fla. Mays’ body was cremated shortly after the dubious autopsy was concluded. Mays’ widow, Carrie, member of a prominent local family, is fighting efforts by her husband’s family to reopen the case. Numerous sources tell me their marriage was shaky the last few months.

You don’t get to die in private in our country. The public has a right to know how people die in order to protect the rest of us. It may be possible that Brad Mays is the first case a world expert has found of a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy without a badly enlarged heart. But there is certainly no harm in reopening the case to explore whether any of several far more likely causes is why Mays died.

Carrie Mays is the daughter of Frank T. Crivello, a prominent former Milwaukee County judge. The Crivellos, many of whom I know personally, are a great family that know a lot of people. Several are close with Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Mark Williams. His wife happens to be Ozaukee County District Attorney Sandy Williams. Did their desire to support Carrie Mays lead to a less than thorough investigation? Or worse, did their friendship lead them to cover up a potential homicide?

The case is so polluted by either incompetence or misconduct that it is imperative than an outside agency reopen it and conduct a proper investigation. The cremation of Brad Mays complicates things but certainly should not stop a real investigation. The state Department of Justice needs to take the case from Mequon police and Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen needs to take prosecution of it away from Sandy Williams.

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Several years ago I raised a stink over the investigation of the death of another prominent local person. The handling of the death of Quad/Graphics owner Harry Quadracci by Waukesha County authorities struck me as incompetent at best and perhaps a coverup. Many urged me to simply let it go. That would have meant accepting a finding that Quadracci died "accidentally" when he decided to take a swim in Pine Lake in the middle of the night.

Quadracci had been prescribed several powerful medications. His behavior prior to his death was erratic. He was known to have been deeply bothered by a terrible fire at one of his firm’s printing facilities. And, his body was found laying right next to his own pier. I was told to somehow believe that Quadracci had been swimming in a lake and drowned only to have his body magically show up at his own pier as if it somehow knew how to come home.

Waukesha County officials stonewalled the release of public records. I didn’t buy their cockamamie explanations then and I don’t now. My probing angered a lot of people. Likewise, some very good people would like me to drop my suspicions about Bradley Mays’ Mequon death. To do so would mean accepting public corruption in the most important area of our existence - the right to life and how life is ended. The rest of the local news media may be that co-opted. I’m not.

Maybe Bradley Mays died just as accidentally as the Mequon cops, the Ozaukee district attorney and the wandering medical examiner want us to believe. Let somebody else prove it. The alternative is to leave members of Brad Mays’ family never knowing for sure why or how he died.

(Mark Belling is the host of a daily WISN radio talk show. His column runs Wednesdays in The Freeman.)