Man buried without a post mortem examination

Even as relatives of 79-year-old, Victor Alexander Austin, continue to mourn his death they feel that the system is failing them because they may never know how he died.

The man’s body was pulled from the Sussex Street Canal on Friday. At the time his body was still wrapped around his bicycle. One of the dead man’s children, Pamela Griffith, told this newspaper yesterday that they were informed on Sunday that the post mortem would have been done yesterday.
In addition, the woman said that the police informed them that her father’s body was being kept at a city funeral parlour.
However, on Sunday the woman said the family learnt that the man’s body was in the Le Repentir Cemetery rotting.
Griffith said when she confronted the police about the body being left in the cemetery she was assured that the Post mortem would have been done yesterday. The woman said early yesterday morning she went to the Le Repentir Cemetery.
Griffith said that she waited from six in the morning until after noon yesterday and the post mortem was not done.
She added that no reason was given as to why the post mortem was not done. Nevertheless, the woman said she was subsequently given a death certificate for her father which stated the cause of death as undetermined.
Given the state of her father’s remains the woman said she was forced to bury her father.
“We had to deal with his sudden death and now we may never know how he died…It’s strange that the police didn’t do a post mortem…but the system has failed us and we leave it in the hands of God,” Griffith lamented.
On Friday morning Austin’s body was pulled from the Sussex Street Canal in the vicinity of Callender Street. The man was last seen alive on Wednesday. Persons are of the opinion that Austin may have been the victim of a hit and run accident.