DR Ere Seshaiah, the pathologist who performed the post-mortem on Bob Woolmer, is insisting that the former Pakistan cricket coach was murdered, even after Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas yesterday announced that Woolmer had died of natural causes and that the police have closed their investigation.

“I am sticking to my findings. He was murdered,” Seshaiah told the Observer after he finished performing post-mortems at the Spanish Town morgue yesterday afternoon.

Dr Seshaiah’s insistence that Woolmer was murdered is therefore likely to result in the issue being settled in a coroner’s court, as the file detailing the four pathologists’ findings, as well as the results of tests carried out on fluid and tissue samples taken from Woolmer’s body, and results of the investigation will now be handed over to the coroner for the Corporate Area, Patrick Murphy.

During a press conference at the Police Officers’ Club in Kingston yesterday morning, Thomas said three independent pathologists – Dr Nat Carey of the United Kingdom, Professor Lorna Martin of South Africa, and Dr Michael Pollenan of Canada – all concluded that Woolmer died from a heart attack caused by a combination of illnesses.

“He had an enlarged heart which was brought on by a number of illnesses,” Thomas said. “The police have now closed their investigation into Bob Woolmer’s mysterious death,” added the police chief.

But Dr Seshaiah, who had remained silent despite being hauled over the coals by his fellow practitioners, yesterday defended his conclusion.

“I am confident he was murdered,” Dr Seshaiah told the Observer. “Woolmer is not a first for me, I have been doing autopsies here since 1995.”

Yesterday, former South African cricket captain and close friend of Woolmer, Clive Rice, defended Dr Seshaiah’s findings.

In a report on the cricketworldcuplatest.com website, Rice alleged that there was an attempt at a cover up because of a fear factor involved for all cricketers and cricket coaches. “If the death was natural, then the pathologist would have known,” the report quoted Rice as saying.

Two days after Woolmer’s death, director of communications for the Jamaica Constabulary Force, Karl Angell, had announced, on behalf of Commissioner Thomas, that Dr Seshaiah’s post-mortem had revealed that Woolmer had died from asphyxiation as a result of manual strangulation. That announcement came just three hours after the police issued an initial statement that the results of the autopsy were inconclusive.

Lead investigator into Woolmer’s death, Deputy Commissioner Mark Shields, has been the target of the British media and some of his colleagues after reports surfaced that Woolmer had not been murdered but had died of a heart attack.

Yesterday, in response to a question as to whether he would resign, Shields told journalists at the press conference, “I love my job and I love working in this country. I am looking forward to the next two years of my contract. We are not pathologists and if we had not sought other opinions we would have also been criticised.”

In the meantime, the U-turn in the Bob Woolmer investigation has shone the spotlight on the woeful inadequacies of Jamaica’s forensic capabilities. But Commissioner Thomas gave the assurance that newly-acquired digital photographic and video equipment will now be used to record all post-mortem examinations carried out in sudden deaths.

Woolmer was found dead by a chambermaid in room 375 on the 12th floor of the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel on March 18, the morning after his team’s stunning three-wicket loss to minnows Ireland at Sabina Park in the first round of the Cricket World Cup.