ROANOKE DOCTOR FACES 2ND WRONGFUL-DEATH LAWSUIT

The widow of a Bedford man who died of an overdose says Dr. Cecil
Byron Knox provided him with methadone.

A Bedford man was under the care of a Roanoke doctor when he overdosed
on methadone nearly two years ago, a lawsuit filed in federal court
Wednesday alleges.

The complaint is the second wrongful - death law suit filed against
Dr. Cecil Byron Knox, a pain specialist. Knox is also facing federal
criminal charges that his alleged prescribing of narcotics for no
legitimate purpose led to the death or serious injury of 10 of his
patients.

Knox prescribed methadone to John Tisdale, according to the lawsuit
filed by his widow, Deloris Tisdale. An overdose of the man-made drug,
which has sedative characteristics similar to those of morphine and
heroin, led to Tisdale's death, the lawsuit alleges. Tisdale's widow
is seeking $1.55 million in damages. Her husband was 46 when he died
in September 2000.

Tony Anderson, one of Knox's attorneys on the criminal charges, said
he found the timing of the lawsuit's filing "suspicious, on the heels
of a criminal indictment that essentially alleged the same acts of
omission."

Knox was indicted this month on criminal charges along with two of his
employees at Southwest Virginia Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
in Roanoke. Knox, office manager Beverly Gale Boone and prescription
hotline operator Tiffany T. Durham also face health care fraud charges.

Despite the filing of the wrongful death lawsuits, federal authorities
would not specify whether they are alleging fatalities in the criminal
case. Nor would they confirm the names of Knox's former patients who
may have suffered under his care.

Deloris Tisdale's allegations link Knox more closely to the death of
one of his patients than a lawsuit filed in Roanoke County Circuit
Court last year by the family of Mark Wimmer.

Wimmer was also a patient of Knox's, according to an affidavit filed
in federal court last summer, but he would sell the medication he was
prescribed, including the potent painkiller OxyContin, so he could buy
other drugs such as cocaine, a close friend of Wimmer's told The
Roanoke Times earlier this month on condition of anonymity.

The medical examiner determined that Wimmer's death had stemmed from
an overdose of cocaine and Valium. Prescriptions from Knox, however,
were found near Wimmer's body in the Salem motel room where he died in
October 1999, according to the affidavit.

Tisdale had been a patient of Knox's since March 1999, according to
the lawsuit. Tisdale went to see Knox because of pain he suffered
after a car accident, the lawsuit said.

Knox will probably be defended in the civil suits by lawyers for his
malpractice insurance company, Anderson said.