Robert B. Forney Jr.

1945 - 2022

News story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade Staff Writer

Robert B. Forney, Jr., a renowned forensic toxicologist long associated with the Lucas County Coroner's Office and the former Medical College of Ohio who often spoke on the toll of mounting opioid deaths, died Sunday in his Springfield Township home. He was 77.

He had cancer, said his wife, Debra Forney.

Mr. Forney became chief toxicologist of the coroner's office in 1976, the year he began as director of toxicology at MCO.

He became ill about a year ago and couldn't come to the office during treatments, but conversed with staff regularly.

"He did as much work as he could virtually from home," said Robyn Shinaver, toxicology laboratory director for the coroner's office. "He had no intention of truly full blown retiring. It was his passion to help people, to provide service. It was his passion to educate."

He had been a clinical associate professor of pathology at the University of Toledo.

He received a doctorate in toxicology in 1974 at Indiana University's medical school, where his father, Robert B. Forney, Sr., was a distinguished professor of pharmacology and toxicology. His father was regarded as a pioneer in the field of toxicology.

The younger Mr. Forney ran the Lucas County coroner's laboratory that detects the drugs, toxins, and other substances in the body – including those contributing to overdose deaths.

"He was one of the most intelligent people you would have ever met," said Dr. Diane Scala-Barnett, the Lucas County coroner since January, 2020 and employed at that office since 1985. "He's known internationally and nationally in his field. We are going to miss him. He was an overall good human being.''

His roles included serving on national advisory councils on alcohol, and he educated others on the effects of alcohol and other substances in the body.

He gave presentations through the years to a variety of audiences on the consequences of substance use and abuse – from cardiovascular complications of cocaine abuse to Toledo Hospital's emergency medical residency program in 1988 to recognizing alcohol impairment at an American Bar Association seminary in 1995.

Within the last decade, presentation topics included the opioid abuse epidemic and preventing prescription drug overdose deaths.

"We need to educate the public and physicians to use less opioids and to prescribe them less frequently," he told The Blade in March, 2016 as he discussed the role of fentanyl in a surge of overdose deaths. "There are other means of dealing with pain other than opiates."

Dr. James Patrick, the county coroner from 1985 until 2020 and who hired Mr. Forney at MCO, said: "He was very well thought of by the community that is involved in taking care of people who have overdoses."

Mr. Forney could sit down and understand the needs of others, whether students, clinicians, law enforcement, prosecutors, emergency service personnel.

"He was able to communicate," Dr. Patrick said. "He was able to explain complex things about toxicology in ways people could make use of the information."

His faith "first and foremost" helped him cope with the opioid epidemic's devastation, Ms. Shinaver said.

"He believed he was doing God's work, and he was going to continue to educate the families of addicts," she said. "We would go to recovery centers, and he would say we keep moving one step at a time. All we can do is educate the general public.''

Ms. Shinaver began at the coroner's office in 2005 with a hospital lab background, but limited toxicology experience. The education he provided students at MCO, UT, and elsewhere, she said, "he would provide day to day in the lab.

"It was ongoing. It was spontaneous education, but it was invaluable," Ms. Shinaver said. "He was wonderful at taking something very complicated and bringing it down to the basics."

Often called on to testify in court in criminal and civil cases, "he could explain something to a jury that was totally scientific from the start and help them understand what they were needing to review," Ms. Shinaver said.

In a case that received wide attention, a test Mr. Forney developed to detect a muscle relaxant in the body contributed to the December, 1989 first-degree murder conviction in Hillsdale, Mich., of David Richard Davis, who was charged with killing his wife. The prosecution said Davis used the drug to suffocate Shannon Mohr Davis in 1980, but made it appear she had a horse-riding accident.

Davis was arrested in American Samoa in January, 1989 after years as a fugitive. Jurors in the case credited Mr. Forney's testimony as persuasive in their decision to convict.

Born July 16, 1945, in Terre Haute, Ind., to Winifred and Robert B. Forney, Sr., Mr. Forney became an Eagle Scout and was a 1963 graduate of North Central High School in Indianapolis.

He received a bachelor's degree in 1968 from Indiana University and then served three years in the Peace Corps, working largely in Thailand during the Vietnam War. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship in forensic toxicology at Case Western Reserve University's medical school and the Cuyahoga County Coroner's Office.

While in southeast Asia, he studied the Thai language and Buddhism, but also began to read the Bible intensively, he told The Blade in 1987. By his return to the States, he had resolved much of his uncertainty about Christianity and the teachings of Jesus, he said then.

For decades, he played host at his residence to the Friday Night Bible Study, which drew scores weekly. He was a member the last 20 years of Christ the Word Church.

"He was one of the initial attendees and became an elder here," said the Rev. David Bayly, senior pastor. "He was a man who inspired a lot of us by his love of God."

He taught Sunday school and preached when called upon. He offered a course for men called "basic training" - telling them to lead and be strong and "to love God with all their hearts.

"He was telling them the basic Christian life in a way that made sense to guys," Pastor Bayly said. "When he spoke he was utterly honest and powerful, because he never shaded things."

In 1994, he assumed his father's place on the faculty of the Robert F. Borkenstein Course on Alcohol and Highway Safety at Indiana University. His honors included, in 2013, the Robert F. Borkenstein Award from the National Safety Council.

Surviving are his wife, the former Debra Brandt, whom he married Nov. 1, 1986; daughter, Ashley Filippelli; sons, Robert Forney III and W. Scott, Jonathan, and Daniel Forney; sister, Judith Forney, and six grandchildren.

Family and friends may visit from 3-7 p.m. Sunday at Christ the Word Church, 3100 Murd Rd. in Richfield Township, where a sharing of memories will begin at 6 p.m. Funeral services will begin at 1 p.m. Monday at the church. Arrangements are by Walker Funeral Home.

The family suggests tributes to the Christ the Word benevolence fund in care of the church, or the Robert F. Borkenstein Course on Alcohol and Highway Safety: Testing, Research and Litigation.