The state of Mississippi has named its next chief medical examiner.
Dr. Staci Turner, previously the state’s interim chief medical examiner, is stepping into the role, Mississippi Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell announced Wednesday.
Turner joined the state medical examiner’s office in January 2020 as the first full-time pathologist in south Mississippi at the start of what would become one of the deadliest years in state history. There were 578 homicides in Mississippi in 2020, a state of 3 million, compared with 440 in 2019 and 389 in 2018.