A University of Pittsburgh Medical Center employee found dead at work earlier this month was killed by cyanide poisoning, but the medical examiner who made the determination Friday said it's too soon to know whether the death was a suicide, a homicide or an accident.
"There's only so much my office can do in terms of investigating how it got into her hands," Allegheny County Medical Examiner Dr. Karl Williams told the Associated Press. "We have to rely on the police to make that part of the investigation."
Co-workers reportedly found Nicole Kotchey, 34, of Ross Township, on the floor near her desk on Nov. 12, and she died about four hours later.
Pittsburgh police major crimes Lt. Daniel Herrmann said police received the medical examiner's findings Friday morning and were continuing to investigate.
UPMC spokeswoman Susan Manko said she was not authorized to comment.
Kotchey's death came a week after another former UPMC medical researcher, Dr. Robert Ferrante, 66, was convicted of first-degree murder in the April 2013 cyanide poisoning death of his wife, Dr. Autumn Klein. Klein, 41, was a neurologist also employed by UPMC. A jury agreed with prosecutors that Ferrante laced his wife's creatine energy drink with the poison, causing her to collapse at their home and die three days later.
Ferrante, a noted researcher into Lou Gehrig's disease, has denied killing his wife and plans to appeal. He acknowledged ordering cyanide for his lab, but said he needed it for research on stem cells that are used to replicate the way neurological cells die as a result of the disease.
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Kotchey worked in a hospital lab, but UPMC officials have not commented on the nature of her employment since Williams first raised questions about her death two weeks ago.
Manko has previously said that the health network was cooperating with the police investigation.
