Jay Glass

Jay Glass (born 1949 in Queens, New York) was Chief Deputy Coroner for Jefferson County from 1982 until he retired in February 2008.

Glass graduated from Jamaica High School in Queens and then enlisted in the U. S. Air Force. He served in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War as an air evacuation medic, assisting with autopsies and accident investigations. He remained in the Air Force Reserve coroner's office after completing his active duty and retired as a special agent in the Office of Special Investigations with a rank of Master Sergeant.

After his discharge, Glass was accepted into a pathologist's assistants training program through the Birmingham Veterans Administration Medical Center. After completing the program in 1974 he joined the staff of the Cooper Green Hospital which began performing forensic autopsies that same year. He remained the pathologist's assistant when the county switched to the medical examiner system in 1977.

Glass took a job in Montana in 1980, but returned to Birmingham in 1981 as deputy coroner. He was promoted the next year to Chief Deputy Coroner. During his tenure the office has grown to include a medical examiner, three full-time forensic pathologists and eight deputy coroner investigators. Among the notable cases investigated by Glass was the death of Thomas Ray, the Center Point native whose B-26 was shot down during the CIA's botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

At the time of his retirement in 2008, Glass estimated that he has been involved in over 30,000 death investigations during his career.

References

• Robinson, Carol (February 10, 2008) "Jefferson County Deputy Chief Coroner Jay Glass prepares to leave the job after three decades." The Birmingham News