‘He doesn’t have a face’

A mother who says she was unable to identify her dead son because his face had decomposed beyond recognition, is calling for an investigation of the Government-contracted Archer’s Funeral Home in Spanish Town, where the body was being stored.

Charlene Dawkins said she ran from the mortuary, where the body of 20-year-old Devarney Smith was being held on Thursday, when the medical examiner pulled back the covers to reveal his thawed, raw flesh.

She told The Gleaner on Friday that the foul odour emanating from the room did not prepare her for what she later witnessed.

Dawkins recounted that Smith, the fourth of her eight children, was shot dead in Portmore, St Catherine, a month before by gunmen and his body taken to Archer’s, pending a post-mortem.

She said she was called into morgue one at the funeral home, where a body was lying on a table. She said a doctor asked her if she knew whose body it was, but she told her no.

Dawkins said it was at that time that the investigating officer who was present confirmed that it was Smith’s, causing her to take flight.

“My son was partially decomposed. I didn’t recognise him. I couldn’t identify him. The flesh on him face was gone,” Dawkins recalled.

Couldn’t sleep

She said her brother was later called in to identify Smith, whose face had begun peeling, according to photos seen by The Gleaner. Dawkins said her brother was able to identify his nephew because of his tooth structure.

“I was traumatised. I couldn’t sleep after. Mi never know seh big people coulda traumatise suh. Them can’t give us any answers why him body decompose and smell suh,” she said.

The woman said the funeral home had only indicated that her son’s body had been “mistakenly” removed from the refrigerator well in advance of the scheduled autopsy.

Chief executive officer of Archer’s, Michael Archer, has, however, denied the claim, noting that the body was removed in the requisite time to facilitate thawing for the autopsy.

He also said that the body was not in a state of decomposition.

“That is not so. Nothing could have caused that,” Archer told The Gleaner.

Archer said Smith’s body would have been exposed to heat for an extended period while the police conducted their investigations immediately after his killing.

He said it was not clear for how long the body was exposed to the elements before it was removed to the morgue, and suggested that even 30 minutes of heat exposure could contribute to Thursday’s outcome.

“We don’t know when the person got shot. We don’t know what time the police was called. The only thing we know is that we got a call to remove a body,” he argued.

He said the body was immediately placed on ice upon arrival at the funeral home and remained there until notice of the autopsy date was given.

The funeral home operator said preparation for the autopsy, which would entail the washing down of the body, could have caused “slippage” of the skin.

Archer insisted, at the same time, that this was normal and rejected assertions that it was because of decomposition.

“For the layer of skin to strip from the body, that is the norm with any body being post-mortem,” the CEO stressed.

He said, also, that the claim of a foul odour emanating from the room amounted to “just bodies mixing with bodies”.

The Gleaner contacted forensic science expert Judith Henry-Mowatt, who declined to comment on the case because she did not have all the relevant information. but said a body stored at the recommended temperature of 4°C and later removed to thaw should not result in decomposition.

However, she said skin peeling, or the absence of skin, forms part of the process for decomposition.

“There are several factors that would contribute to a body being decomposed,” Henry-Mowatt, who is the executive director of the Institute of Forensic Science and Legal Medicine, said.

Dawkins, in the meantime, has called for an investigation of the funeral home, insisting that the Government should reconsider its contract with them.

“They have to investigate this. This cannot be. The Government must order an investigation, not because him dead. They not handling things right over there. We need to get some answers.

“He doesn’t have a face. The undertaker going to have to make a face now for him,” said Dawkins.

She said the family intends to sue Archer’s.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com