YaYa_521
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Death investigator gets reprimand after mistaking fatal shooting for drug overdose
An East Baton Rouge death investigator was issued a letter of reprimand after his supervisors discovered he had misidentified a recent homicide as an accidental drug overdose.
The mistake didn't surface until funeral home employees noticed the victim's gunshot wound while preparing the body for services and burial earlier this month.
"We must pause and imagine what could have become of this if the family had requested a direct cremation," Shane Evans, chief of investigations for the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner's Office, wrote in the letter dated Jan. 3.
Snip
The error occurred on New Years Day when emergency crews responded to reports that Joah Ross, 26, had been found unresponsive in his mother's Fairfields area home. Both police and the coroner's office said investigators initially assumed the death was an overdose because they found drugs in the room, but later became aware of the gunshot wound and launched a homicide investigation.
Snip
Now the case remains unsolved and Ross' relatives have said they're worried that the investigation was compromised from the beginning since detectives didn't start collecting evidence until after the funeral home discovered a gunshot wound to the chest.
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Investigator's ID and more in article.
How'd this happen? Doesn't the victim's entire body get examined initially or at least at the morgue? The bigger question I have is how often do things like this happen and go unnoticed, or hidden?
An East Baton Rouge death investigator was issued a letter of reprimand after his supervisors discovered he had misidentified a recent homicide as an accidental drug overdose.
The mistake didn't surface until funeral home employees noticed the victim's gunshot wound while preparing the body for services and burial earlier this month.
"We must pause and imagine what could have become of this if the family had requested a direct cremation," Shane Evans, chief of investigations for the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner's Office, wrote in the letter dated Jan. 3.
Snip
The error occurred on New Years Day when emergency crews responded to reports that Joah Ross, 26, had been found unresponsive in his mother's Fairfields area home. Both police and the coroner's office said investigators initially assumed the death was an overdose because they found drugs in the room, but later became aware of the gunshot wound and launched a homicide investigation.
Snip
Now the case remains unsolved and Ross' relatives have said they're worried that the investigation was compromised from the beginning since detectives didn't start collecting evidence until after the funeral home discovered a gunshot wound to the chest.
#
Investigator's ID and more in article.
How'd this happen? Doesn't the victim's entire body get examined initially or at least at the morgue? The bigger question I have is how often do things like this happen and go unnoticed, or hidden?