Just as some had speculated, New York-based forensic scientist Michael Baden announced this afternoon that he has reviewed the case of David Carradine and ruled out the possibility of suicide, to which we say, duh!

This story is all over the internet tonight, but seriously, hasn't suicide been pretty much ruled out by the release of the death scene photos, not to mention the leaks to the media by investigators indicating that there was some serious kink going on in Carradine's hotel room? Regardless, here's what Baden told the Daily News:

After doing the autopsy, reviewing all the findings and the information we have so far, I had sufficient information to rule out suicide. In order to arrive at a proper manner of death, we have to combine the autopsy findings with evidence from the scene and laboratory findings, which could take a few weeks. The family is getting all that through the State Department, the FBI and the Thai authorities. That would include the entire file, whatever is seen by police, everything at the scene and everything from the crime lab and toxicology tests.

Whatever, we're sticking by our belief that fake death-jerk staging ninjas are behind this, and Baden said nothing today that rules that out.

UPDATE: Cityfile's Remy Stern emailed to inform us that Michael Baden has a bit of a checkered past. He was fired from his position as the city's chief medical examiner by then Mayor Ed Koch for mishandling evidence and for "his inability to work smoothly inside the criminal-justice system." He now appears regularly as a forensic "expert" on Fox News. We don't think that this renders his findings insignificant, but it is sort of interesting.


Famed New York Forensics Expert: David Carradine Death Was Not Suicide [Daily News]