Delbert Joe Lacefield ^{1 2 3}

   FamilySearch ID: L564-VBV.

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Newspaper: Indianapolis Star: Marriage Linda Lee Beher and Delbert Joe Lacefield, 15 Oct 1961, Indianapolis, Marion, IN. ¹ Lacefield-Beher
(photo of bride)
MISS LINDA LEE BEHER To Be Mrs. Delbert Joe Lacefield
Rushville, Ind. -- The marriage of Miss Linda Lee Beher and Delbert Joe Lacefield will take place at 2:30 o'clock this afternoon in St. Paul's Methodist Church. Dr. Harry O. Kisner will read the double-ring ceremony. The couple will leave for a wedding trip to Mexico City and Acapulco, Mex., after a reception in the Durbin Hotel. Parents of the bride are Mr. and Mrs. William F. Beher of Washington. The bridegroom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Murray E. Lacefield of Oklahoma City, Okla. MISS BEHER will be gowned in white Dulcette satin fashioned with a sculptured bodice applique with medallions of re-embroidered Alen-con lace and pearls. A chapel-length bouffant skirt is detailed with double panels of jeweled lace, and a tiny bow and sash accent the fitted waistline. Her veil will be a Belgium lace mantilla which gives a Juliet effect. She will carry roses and stephanotis on a white prayer book. Mrs. Stephen J. Richards of Louisville, Ky., will be matron of honor. Bridesmaids will be Mrs. Charles Mollencamp of Greenwood, Mrs. Ronald Wilson of Lafayette and Mrs. Douglas Fransen of Clinton, Okla. They will wear ballerina-length dresses of violet satin with full skirts of unpressed pleats. Their flowers will be pink and purple asters. Ke' Ke' Haydon will be flower girl in a white organza dress. Ring bearer will be A. G. Haydon. Ray Smith of Oklahoma City will be best man. Ushers will be Mr. Fransen of Clinton and Mr. Richards of Louisville. THE BRIDE is a graduate of Stephens College, the University of Colorado and the Department of Dietetics at the University of Oklahoma Medical Center. She is a member of Alpha Gamma Delta social, Kappa Phi honorary and Psi Iota XI philanthropic sororities. Mr. Lacefield was graduated from Oklahoma State University and is completing work on his Ph.D degree from the University of Oklahoma. The couple will reside at 2600 North West 63d Street, Oklahoma City.

2. Residence: 2600 North West 63rd St., Oklahoma City, OK on 15 Oct 1961 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, OK. ¹

3. Residence: 1125 Fenwick Place, Oklahoma City, OK on 7 Apr 1963 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, OK. ⁴

4. Marriage Fact: It appears in 1974 wife Linda Lee and her two daughters moved to her birthplace in Rushville, Indiana, leaving husband and son in Oklahoma., 1974, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, OK.

5. Newspaper: Daily Oklahoman: Guilty Doctor Quits Post With FAA, 10 Jun 1987, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, OK. ⁵ Dr. Delbert J. Lacefield, who pleaded guilty in federal court last month to falsifying chemical analysis reports, has resigned from the Federal Aviation Administration. Lacefield, 52, head of the forensic toxicology research laboratory at the Civil Aeromedical Institute (CAMI), resigned effective Friday, John Clabes, FAA public affairs spokesman, said. Clabes said Lacefield gave no reason Tuesday for submitting his resignation to Dr. Audie W. Davis, acting director of CAMI. Clabes said, however, that the resignation wasn't required in the terms of the plea agreement by Lacefield and federal prosecutors before he pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Lee West May 26. West hasn't imposed sentence but is expected to act in about a month. The investigation into Lacefield's operations also resulted in a suggested reorganization of CAMI, an independent FAA operation located at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City, and tightening of its procedures. Lacefield, a 21-year veteran of the research institute, admitted falsifying three blood analysis reports in 1986. Under a contract with the Federal Railway Administration, Lacefield was supposed to analyze body fluids from train crewmen involved in accidents. Prosecutors said Lacefield performed urinalyses but admitted he neither had the knowledge nor the equipment to test blood plasma for alcohol and narcotics use. Lacefield's analyses were challenged in the investigation of the Jan. 4 collision of an Amtrak train with a Conrail train in which 16 people died near Baltimore. An investigation found nothing wrong with Lacefield's work in that crash but discovered bad reports filed in 16 cases in 1986. As a result, the railroad authority contract was canceled April 1. U.S. Attorney Bill Price of Oklahoma City said Lacefield's apparent motive was to retain the contract even though he couldn't do the work. In return for the agreement of prosecutors not to take the case to the grand jury where he could have been indicted on more counts, Lacefield pleaded guilty to filing false reports on train crashes in North Platte, Neb., Struthers, Ohio, and Portales, N.M., in 1986. If the maximum sentence is ordered, Lacefield could be imprisoned 15 years and fined $30,000.

6. Newspaper: Daily Oklahoman, 21 Jun 1987, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, OK. ⁶ Train Crash Tests Derail Chemist's Winning Career
By By Ed Kelley Washington Bureau

Problems Mount At City Lab
May 1985: Federal Railroad Administration signs contract with Civil Aeromedical Institute to conduct drug tests.
June 1986: Confidential report by Armed Forces Institute of Pathology cites lax structure at CAMI; '
February 1987: the audit by railroad agency shows discrepancies in CAMI test results.
March 25: Railroad agency administrator briefs Department of Transportation investigators on problems at CAMI.
March 28: Investigative team arrives in Oklahoma City.
April 1: Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole announces Investigation; results forwarded to U.S. attorney's office in Oklahoma City.
April 10: Secret investigators' report details CAMI "management deficiencies."
April 14: Federal Aviation Administration confirms lab director Delbert Lacefield has been reassigned.
May 26: Lacefield pleads guilty to falsifying chemical analysis.
May 27: Officials confirm CAMI manager J. Robert Dillfe has been reassigned to Washington.
June 9: Lacefield resigns.

WASHINGTON - Delbert Lacefield fooled a lot of people. After nearly two decades, he had developed a reputation within some government circles as a savvy chemist whose work, when challenged, was unimpeachable. So when the Federal Railroad Administration went shopping two years ago for a place to do drug analysis, it focused on his laboratory, at the Civil Aeromedical Institute in Oklahoma City. Inquiries went out to other federal agencies, asking if the small unit inside CAMI that conducted forensic toxicology research could handle examinations of urine and blood samples of rail workers following accidents. At every stop, the answers were the same: Yes, CAMI could, thanks in large part to Dr. Delbert J. Lacefield, its 52-year-old senior chemist and director. "Rightly or wrongly," said John H. Riley, railroad administration chief, "he was a well-respected man ..." When the deal was struck, Lacefield's lab had a contract worth a reported $200,000, and Riley had a promise that CAMI would perform the complex tests required to make drug testing as exact as possible. But last winter, the perfect match the government thought it had with the lab began to unravel, with the breakneck speed of a locomotive. First came a terrible train wreck in Maryland on a cold Sunday afternoon, putting pressure on federal officials to come up with answers to satisfy the families of the dead and injured. To Oklahoma City came the fluid samples from train workers, to determine if drugs wore involved. The results from Laceficld's lab were challenged as inconsistent, but not before a routine audit conducted by Riley's office turned up more questions than were ever raised by the train crash. By late March, federal investigators were in Lacefield's shop. Within two weeks, he had been stripped of his director's duties. Then came criminal charges, to which Lacefield confessed. Today, he faces up to 15 years in prison and $30,000 in fines as he awaits sentencing. Why did he falsify records to conceal the fact that tests he promised he could do were never done? And why did he jeopardize his integrity? The reasons aren't clear, and Lacefield has been silent. But the man who conducted the investigation has his own theory. "I think," Douglas Crouch said, "it really bordered on professional ego." The "sordid mess" at CAMI, as one congressman described it last week, overshadowed an operation that stretches beyond the 10 or so employees within the forensic research lab. With four major branches, the 150 or so employees at CAMI, an independent operation at the Federal Aviation Administration's Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, do a variety of chores. They range from examining all air traffic control students to certifying pilots to monitoring asbestos contamination. Since the mid-1960s, the forensic unit Lacefield included had analyzed samples from more than 5,000 fatal aviation accidents. "No other laboratory offered a level of relevant experience approaching CAMI's," Riley told a congressional panel. Riley has been on a hot seat. Thirty-seven people from 48 accidents died between 1975 and 1984 in train wrecks where alcohol and drugs played a role. Such problems propelled his office into the controversial area of drug testing in a big way. After a series of hearings and meetings, the decision came to place all of the railroad administration's toxicological tests with a single lab, "so we could monitor the quality and timeliness of its work," he said. CAMI won, hands down. There were the 5,000 samples it had analyzed. It had state-of-the-art equipment, with promises to acquire more. And it had Lacefield. He had served as the top testing authority for the FAA and safety board and had worked with the Justice Department numerous times. From each agency, Riley said, came plaudits. Justice officials also pointed out another plus: Lacefield, as an expert witness in aviation litigation, never lost a case. "I still think that decision was right, considering the circumstances," Riley said. The problems escalated quickly. When the rail tests began, the lab lacked what is known as a gas chromatography mass spectrometer, an instrument which analyzes urine and blood plasma extracts. John W. Melchner, the Transportation Department's inspector general, said Lacefield had indicated that without it, the lab might have trouble detecting low levels of some drugs from blood plasma the critical test to determine recent use. The solution: A contract was signed with Oklahoma State University to analyze the extracts, until the lab could acquire its own. The first testing of urine and blood samples from railroad employees began in February 1986, Melchner said. But four months later, when officials from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology conducted their own review of CAMI's work, the instrument it was to buy still hadn't arrived. And, as it turned out, the lab "simply did not send any blood plasma extracts" to OSU, Melchner said. The June 1986 report from the Armed Forces agency criticized the lab for sloppiness. It was sent to Dr. Frank Austin, the FAA's federal air surgeon. He asked for a response, but Melchner isn't sure he ever received one. Austin later resigned, and Riley claims he didn't know anything about the report until recently. Meanwhile, more pressure came when CAMI received fluid specimens after the crash last Jan. 4 between Conrail and Amtrak trains near Chase, Md., in which 16 people were killed. Within days, Lacefield telephoned in results of the specimens he received from the Conrail engineer and brakeman. His conclusion: Urine and blood plasma tested positive for marijuana. Two weeks later, the railroad administration learned the lab had reported it also found the presence of tetrahydracannabinol, or THC, in the blood of the two workers. THC is the active ingredient which suggests recent use. However, Melchner said, there was no documentation in lab files to back up the verbal reports about the blood tests. The discrepancy coincided with what Riley said was the single element that doomed Lacefield: a routine audit. In early February, Riley said he noticed that about a dozen cases at the lab showed urinalysis had produced high drug residues from rail workers' samples, but blood tests had turned up negative. He also began hearing from his staff about a change CAMI was using to report negative findings. Staffers Riley sent to Oklahoma City discovered documentation to show that urine testing had been done. But none of the files from February 1986, when the tests began, until December contained "any documentation to indicate that blood plasma extracts were analyzed for THC or cocaine," Melchner said. Thus, in 1986, Lacefield had prepared at least 17 lab testing reports that indicated testing of blood plasma had been done, "when in fact, it had not," Melchner said. Lacefield, he said, knew that the blood plasma tests had not been conducted when he doctored the reports. Lacefield was through. After the investigators came the newspaper stories, the charges and finally, his guilty pleas to falsifying tests involving three accidents in 1986. He was exonerated in the fatal Maryland crash. Further testing showed the results were correct, even with the poor documentation. But the damage was irreversible. The railroad administration has taken its contract to a Utah lab. Testimony at a congressional hearing last week left little doubt that CAMI wouldn't be much of a player when random drug testing of federal employees begins on a wide scale. Crouch, the investigator on the scene, believes the lab's problems occurred because Lacefield wanted badly to perfect the process for blood plasma extraction. Lacefield, Crouch said, told an assistant "that we will develop a methodology so we can perform the terms of this contract." Ironically, they were close to it, when the Maryland crash occurred.
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7. Obituary: The Oklahoman: obituary of Delbert Joe Lacefield on 25 Mar 2010 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, OK. ³ Delbert Joe Lacefield was 75 years old when he left this earth to fall into the loving arms of Jesus. He was born on Christmas Day in 1934 to Murray and Nancy Lacefield. He is survived by his daughter Shelley Lamle and her husband Walter of Piedmont, Oklahoma, his son Doug Lacefield and his wife Cindy of Piedmont, Oklahoma and his daughter Christi Peach and her husband Paul of Newburgh, Indiana. He is also survived by his grandchildren Luke and Landon Lamle, Christian, McKenna and Sydney Peach, and step-grandchildren Josh and Jared Robertson. He was preceded in death by his parents, Murray and Nancy Lacefield, his wife, Eugenia Grace Lacefield and his daughter, Laurel A. Lacefield.

Delbert was a very intelligent, humble and giving man. He was constantly giving of himself for others. As a graduate of Capitol Hill High School in 1953, he served on the Junior Red Cross. He was one of 20 youth in the nation who served as a consultant for the Junior Red Cross program. He went on to serve as President of the Junior Red Cross County Council. He was an honor student who also served on the student council and was a member of the math and science clubs. He belonged to the Oklahoma Mineral and Gem Society as rock collecting was one of his hobbies. He was the recipient of the E.K. Gaylord Philanthropies Award. As a youth he also served as President of the Methodist Youth Fellowship at Asbury Methodist Church. Delbert graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1957 with a B.S. in Chemistry where he was a member of Blue Key and served his fraternity Kappa Alpha in many different capacities. He went on after graduating from college to serve the KA fraternity as Regional Province Commander.

After graduating from OSU, he went on to attend the University of Oklahoma Medical School where he received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and specialized in Clinical Chemistry and Forensic Toxicology. During his college years, he was awarded the Banning Scholar award, the Gaylord Scholar award and was a Gaylord Graduate Scholar and Kappa Alpha Order Graduate Scholar. During his residency he worked at Presbyterian Hospital as a Teaching Fellow and Director of Clinical Chemistry Laboratories. He was Chief Forensic Toxicologist for the FAA from 1966 to 1987. He was very invested in life and very passionate about life and serving others but he did it in the most humble and self-sacrificing of ways. He loved his family and friends and loved being with them more than anything. He was an avid hunter of waterfowl and loved sitting in a goose pit whether he saw a single goose or not. He also loved to fish and one of his greatest joys was the day he could teach his son to hunt and fish. He loved baseball at all levels and was a great teacher of the game serving as a coach to young boys for 17 years. Delbert loved OSU! He loved all things OSU and as a sufferer of Alzheimer's, one of the few things he never forgot was the words to the OSU fight song. Because of our beloved father, we have learned what is truly important in this world - to love others unconditionally and without judgment, to give, give and give some more, to serve others humbly and with a great passion, to love your family with every fiber of your being and to keep your eyes turned upward from where all blessings flow. Services will be held Friday, March 26 at 11:00am at United Methodist Church of the Servant in Oklahoma City. Delbert loved research and so in keeping with his love of research and his spirit of giving, the family is asking that in lieu of flowers donations be made in memory of Dr. Delbert Lacefield to: The Childrens Hospital Foundation, Oklahoma City. Donations can also be made to the Childrens Hospital Foundation.

Delbert married Linda Lee Beher, daughter of William Frederick Beher and Lelande Anise Hunt, on 15 Oct 1961 in Rushville, Rush, IN.¹ (Linda Lee Beher was born on 25 Nov 1937 in Springfield, Sangamon, IL ^{7 8} and was buried in Rushville: Cavalry Cemetery, Rush, IN.)