A Volunteer Is Dead

Abstract

On Monday, March 28, 1966, Jack McPhee, regional Peace Corps director in Mwanza, received a call that Peppy Kinsey is dead. He goes to the hospital for more information and to make preparations for handling the body. He then drives to Maswa, a small town some 80 miles away, and finds that her husband, Bill, is being held on a charge of murder. At first, Peace Corps officials set in motion procedures for handling the death of a volunteer, but now a much more serious situation emerges, and the Peace Corps scrambles to find an attorney, a pathologist, and decide how to respond to a charge of murder. In the meantime, a Tanzanian medical officer performs a postmortem, and Bill appears before the local magistrate.