Dr. Herbert Pardes, a psychiatrist and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, who brought order to the merger of two major medical centers that became New York-Presbyterian Hospital Martin Luther King, Jr., O.J. Simpson, Jon Benet Ramsey, Mary Jo Kopechne and many others, died on April 14, in St. Clair Shores, MI, a suburb of Detroit. He was 97.

Dr. Spitz’s career of more than 60 years traced to the early days of modern forensic pathology, and his textbook on the topic remains a gold standard in the field.