Woman blames funeral home after body decomposes

Chad Bryan, Staff Reporter

A relative of a deceased woman is seeking answers from Empathy Funeral Home and Chapel as to how her cousin's body reached an advanced state of decomposition after it was left in their care to be autopsied.

Joelene said her 34-year-old cousin died at home in Seaview Gardens and was taken to the funeral home.

"The funeral home came and took her their place and stored her. We were supposed

to do an autopsy, but the policeman didn't show. When we contacted him, he said he wasn't at work or he was sick," an angry Joelene said.

She said when she eventually attended the autopsy at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH), the body presented to her was not in the same condition she last saw it.

"Last week, we went and did the autopsy. When we went there, my cousin's body was decomposed. She started to strip, she was black and she smelled," she said. This led to a change of casket to one that couldn't be opened based on the smell emanating from it.

Joelene believes that since the body was left in the care of the funeral home, they were responsible for it being in the decomposing state.

However, Empathy said they were not to be blamed. "Where it went to be autopsied, the police didn't turn up. They called us back and told us to come back for the body.

"We went for the body and brought it back here. The body was out there for a day so - it thawed out. It's not our fault," claimed one of the funeral home representatives, who did not want to be named.

A morgue attendant at the KPH also levelled blame at the funeral home, saying the hospital would have kept the body at the right temperature until the time of the autopsy. "How I really view it, the whole thing is on the funeral home," he said.

However, Derron, another representative from the funeral home, refuted the claim by the morgue attendant. "The Government doesn't have a fridge at that facility," he said.