TheAgitator.com
More Autopsy Adventures in Mississippi
Thursday, March 27th, 2008When Willie Mae Galmore buried her daughter in 2004, she was left with a sinking feeling that the person in the casket was not her child. DNA testing has confirmed her suspicions and now she’s on a mission to find out what happened.
Authorities reported in June 2004 that Galmore’s daughter, Rochelle Thomas, died in a car accident. She was buried in Heavenly Rest Cemetery in Lyon after a closed casket funeral.
In August 2007, the body was exhumed at Galmore’s request and DNA proved the woman was not Galmore’s child. Even more disturbing, the body is likely that of an unidentified male.
See if anything in this passage jumps out at you:
Thomas, who was a 34-year-old mother of three at the time of the accident, was reportedly found dead on June 12, 2004, beside her wrecked car in a ravine in Vicksburg.
When her mother asked then-Warren County Coroner John Thomason if she could come identify the body, she was allegedly told no due to the state of decomposition.
Thomason then told Galmore that he identified the body as belonging to Thomas and sent the body to Mississippi Mortuary Services to undergo an autopsy by Dr. Steven Hayne.
“Don’t come down here is what they told me,” Galmore said.
How could this have happened?
Meredith says there are a number of possible scenarios for the mixup. One possibility, he said, is that there were two people in Thomas’ car and her body was thrown so far from the wreck it was never found.
Or, he said, the bodies could have been switched at some point in the process between the wreck and autopsy and funeral, and Thomas is buried in someone else’s grave.
Wow…that is absolutely horrific. Honestly, I hope the people who’ve suffered as a result of what Hayne did sue him into poverty.
I wonder just how much fallout is going to result from what this guy did over the course of his career? If he’s screwing up simply autopsies like this (and couldn’t even distinguish a male from a female), what’s going to happen with every single case that he ever got involved with? Did the state convict the right guy in any of them? Or if they did, is this going to allow the guilty to walk free? I can see why nobody’s wanted to dig into this guy’s practices…the deeper you dig, the worse the consequences for everyone in a position of power in the state get.
Oh well, you reap what you sow.
If I lived in MS, I’d be out for blood. Holy sheeeeit! I cannot believe the state of affairs there!
State of decomposition???? How long was she laying in the grass after the accident? Are there ANY normal people in public office?
Or she was murdered and the body disposed of somewhere else, and the person found at the wreck site is the murderer or an accomplice.
Radley,
Thought you’d be interested to know that yesterday I got an amendment to a MS Medical Examiner’s Office appropriation bill that says that office can use none of its appropriated monies unless and until it fills the Medical Examiner’s position with a pathologist qualified as required by MS law. That is, pathologist has to be recognized by American Board of Pathology.
Can see related article at Brookhaven, MS, newspaper (Daily Leader).
Bob
Don’t know if the amendment will survive conference with the Senate but we’re going to try. At the very least, the camel’s nose is under the tent, to coin a phrase.
If the car accident resulted in a fire, I could understand using the state of decomposition argument. The last thing you’d want a parent to see is the embers of their child. But for a medical examiner to not be able to tell the difference between a male and female body is an atrocity.
so if the amendment doesn’t survive, that pretty much means “Dr” Hayne could conceivably be hired as the Mississippi State Medical Examiner? Is that the reason for the amendment, to prevent that from ever happening?
and they’re still usin him.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19430985&BRD=1377&PAG=461&dept_id=172922&rfi=6