Sands, who worked for Easams, a company owned by Marconi, is one of at least four scientists working in the United Kingdom who have died in puzzling circumstances in the past several months. The ruling was the third time in nine months that local coroners have failed to decide the cause of death in cases involving scientists with military connections. Suicide verdicts have been returned in the case of two other defense scientists who had worked for Marconi companies. Local officials have been coordinating efforts to learn if the deaths are related.
Meanwhile, a fifth defense researcher whose disappearance last January had been linked with the four deaths has been found alive and well. Avtar Singh Gida, who vanished in January while conducting underwater acoustic research on a Ministry of Defense grant at the Loughborough University of Technology, has returned to Britain after being found working in a Paris boutique.
