Dr. Leon Kelly is the Chief Medical Examiner and elected Coroner for El Paso County, Colorado. He graduated from Indiana University’s undergraduate and medical school programs, completed his residency in anatomic and clinical pathology at Penrose-St. Francis in Colorado Springs, and performed his forensic pathology fellowship at the University of Texas in Dallas. He has served as a medical examiner at the El Paso County Coroner’s Office since 2008 and was first elected Coroner in 2018. Dr. Kelly has performed thousands of forensic autopsies and investigations on those who have died suddenly, unexpectedly or by violent means. He leads the largest medical examiner’s office in the state which serves approximately 1/3 of Colorado counties. He has testified in hundreds of criminal trials across the Rocky Mountain region as an expert in the fields of forensic pathology and strangulation.

Dr. Kelly is the co-founder of the El Paso County Child Fatality Review Team and board chair of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Colorado Springs, which work to reduce teen and adult suicide. As a professor at UCCS, he has taught courses on the investigation of injury and death for more than a decade. During 2020, Dr. Kelly also served in an emergency capacity as the Deputy Medical Director of El Paso County Public Health, helping to lead the community’s COVID-19 pandemic response.

Dr. Kelly has appeared as the forensic pathology consultant on several true crime programs including Investigation Discovery’s top-rated program ‘Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda’ and A&E’s ‘The Killing of JonBenet: The Truth Uncovered’.