Former Bay medical examiner Dr. Sybers dies of lung cancer

PANAMA CITY — Dr. William Sybers, the former medical examiner for the 14th Judicial Circuit who was the focus of a 2001 murder trial and then a 2003 plea agreement charging him with killing his wife by lethal injection in 1991, succumbed to lung cancer in Central Florida on Saturday. He was 81.

Sybers is survived by his wife, Judy, and children Dr. William A. Sybers Jr., and Jennifer McShane, and stepsons Brad Ray and Shaun Ray.

Sybers’ death comes 11 years after he said he reluctantly accepted a plea agreement for manslaughter in the death of Kay Sybers, a deal he said he took because of his failing health and a desire to avoid a second trial. He maintained his innocence throughout the process, including the day he entered his plea in 2003.

“I’m going to spend more time with my daughter and my wife,” he said after his sentencing. Later, he told The News Herald, “I finally realized I could lose again. There’s no way I could go back to prison. It was too horrible.”

Sybers’ case was in both the local and national spotlight and still can be found circulating on late-night reruns as it captured the attention of investigative network shows like “Dateline NBC.”

Kay Sybers died May 30, 1991, in the Sybers’ home and it drew suspicion when someone notified the Florida Department of Law Enforcement they suspected foul play. The case was investigated for years by different agencies and prosecutors before an indictment was returned in 1997 charging Sybers with first-degree murder, saying he killed his wife with an injection of an unknown poison.

Between the indictment, the circumstances surrounding the death and the plea deal six years later, the case involved enough twists to sustain national attention, starting with the fact that Sybers was the district’s medical examiner at the time of his wife’s death.

Prosecutors alleged and Sybers admitted to being in an affair with Judy Ray at the time of the death. William Sybers and Judy Ray became husband and wife three years after Kay Sybers’ death.

Kay Sybers’ body was embalmed without an autopsy at her husband’s request, something he said he did based on what she previously had requested but something the state said he did to hide evidence of poisoning.

Prosecutors initially charged that Sybers used potassium as the poison, but a judge ruled that the science behind that wasn’t sufficient to be used at trial. Prosecutors later switched to succinylcholine as the poison and that evidence was allowed at trial despite defense objections.

The state sought to disinter Kay Sybers’ body from an Iowa grave after the indictment to obtain additional tissue samples for testing. After a week-long hearing in Iowa, that request was denied, a decision ultimately upheld by the Iowa Supreme Court. Kay Sybers’ family supported Sybers and testified against the disinterment.

Sybers’ son, Timothy, committed suicide after the indictment and before the trial, and the state said he couldn’t live with the thought that his father killed his mother.

In 2001, the trial was moved to Pensacola due to pretrial publicity. After three weeks of testimony, a jury found Sybers guilty of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to life in prison. That verdict was overturned in 2003 when an appeals court ruled the evidence surrounding the succinylcholine was not scientifically accepted and should not have been allowed at trial.

As part of the final plea deal, Sybers did not have to serve any additional jail time.