LOUISVILLE, Ky. — We’ve never seen a public servant like him; outspoken, brilliant, blunt and brash. He was made for television.
In 1991, Dr. George Nichols said this about the national sensation over the exhumation of the remains in Louisville of the 12th President of the United States, Zachary Taylor. “Well it’s a question, since it was asked, had to be answered. Whether it was positive or negative, mattered not to me.”
At the age of 77, Nichols died with his wife by his side in Louisville on Nov. 20, 2024.
He was CSI, before the term became a TV series.
Nichols was Kentucky’s first medical examiner, and he held the office for 20 years.
He said it was the Carrollton, Kentucky bus crash in 1988 that killed 27 people, mostly children, that changed his life.
Nichols said in a later interview that he was so shaken by the scene, he secretly went to a Kentucky State trooper’s car, and “sat in the front seat and hoped this was a nightmare. Then made a game plan on what to do.”
But afterwards he led the charge to dramatically change how school buses were built along with their escape doors. It has saved lives to this day.
His life and occupation was death.
He investigated the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in northern Kentucky, and the country's first mass shooting at Louisville's Standard Gravure.
But it was the June 1991 exhumation of our country's 12th president buried in Louisville that drew national attention.
Questions had been raised, did Taylor really die of arsenic poisoning instead? Taylor had opposed the expansion of slavery.
Nichols relished the national TV coverage and opened the final news conference with drama and a bombshell: that a national TV producer had tried to rifle through his files and get the scoop on his final ruling, telling the TV audience, “I must talk about an unauthorized entry into my office this morning.”
But minutes later he was back in front of the same cameras apologizing. The producer had been lost in the hallway, not trying to steal files.
When it came to the final conclusion on Taylor, Nichols made all of us reporters who were there, wait through a long and complicated presentation for nearly 20 minutes before finally saying, “It is my opinion that President Zachary Taylor was NOT poisoned by arsenic.”
He then explained he found “numerous strands of scalp hair and body hair, partially shredded fingernails" in the president's coffin.
In 1996, I asked him about that day and the entire ordeal. He said simply, “It was a huge pain in the butt!”
He finished out his honored career as a highly paid trial consultant, telling me with typical Nichols bluntness how he did it.
“My goal with every jury that I deal with, is to treat them with the proper respect, to use the big expert words, and to explain to them at the level that a 5th grader could understand.”
Thank you, George, for your tremendous public service and legacy, and for teaching this young reporter how to deal with grieving families who were in the middle of horrific news stories. You always had them first in your heart and mind.
From his obituary:
Nichols was an accomplished cook who passed along his knowledge to his three sons. He disdained golf, preferring to find joy in boating, skiing, scuba diving, gardening, taking his dog to farmer’s markets, spending a day at the races or sipping a fine bourbon, neat.
Dr. Nichols is survived by his wife, Dr. Seeger, and their three sons: Ian with his wife Lauren and their sons Lawson and Max in Denver; Dillon with his wife Michelle and their sons Bennett and Owen in Winnetka, IL; and Jordan with his wife Lauren and their son Riley in Denver. Also surviving is a brother, Thomas with his wife Janet in Louisville.
Plans for a memorial event are pending. Special thanks to the Borden Mortuary Group. Donations in his honor may be directed to his wife’s favorite charity, friend4life.org.
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