Photo:16 WAPT News Jackson/Youtube
16 WAPT News Jackson/Youtube
The Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, has said that a miscommunication between several government offices led to a six-month delay in a family finding out that their missing son had died.
“There was a lack of communication with the missing person’s division, the coroner’s office and accident investigation and because of that, Mr. Wade, they were unable to find his family within an expeditious period of time,” he said during his speech.
“It is tragic to lose your child. It is tragic to suffer the consequences of having to bury your child before you pass. But to add insult to that trauma, it is even more difficult to not have the ability to have a proper burial for your child,” Lumumba also said during the speech, per NBC News. “And for that we regret a circumstance that Mr. Wade’s family has had to deal with.”
Accordingto an earlier report from NBC News, an investigating coroner was unable to identify Wade at the scene of the accident and later, according to records, had identified him through prescription pills found on the deceased man and received contact details from a medical provider. The outlet reported that the same investigating coroner had passed on these contact details to police shortly afterward.
Lumumba said on Thursday, per NBC News, that the number provided “was not accurate or not a good number to be used,” and that had led to police being unable “to make contact,” with Wade’s family.
On Aug. 24, Wade’s mother was eventually contacted and informed of his death, and she was later told where he was buried, per the outlet. It was also reported that she located her son under grave marker No. 672 and paid $250 to claim his body.
Jackson Director of Communications Melissa Faith Payne shared similar sentiments in a statement to WLBT earlier this week, saying that officers who had been working on missing person’s cases had not been aware that Wade was the victim who died on Mar. 5. Her statement, per the outlet, also noted that the lead detective investigated the case up until his retirement and that when a subsequent officer had taken up Wade’s case, and traced it back to the coroner’s office.
The Jackson Police Department and Jackson Coroner’s Office did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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“To put your child and to bury him like that, and they knew that one of their officers had hit him,” Wade’s mother, Bettersten Wade said earlier this week, per WLBT. “I could have understood if somebody shot him on the street… It’s just so much.”
She added. “All of this could have been avoided. None of this had to happen.”
source: people.com
