BOSTON (AP) – A brother of the Cape Cod man whose body was misplaced by the state medical examiner’s office said Saturday he hopes his family’s ordeal results in positive changes at the embattled office.
State police investigators found the missing body of Thomas Brissette, 49, on Friday. They discovered that his body was mistakenly released to a funeral home and buried under the name of another person.
“It’s not an easy job, I’m sure,” Gerald Brissette, 42, said of the medical examiner. “But we would have liked to have someone admit the mistake instead of blowing us off. We wanted to have some closure. Now, it’s still continuing.”
Thomas Brissette, who suffered from diabetes, died in the Yarmouth motel room that he was renting after a period of homelessness. Because his death was “unattended,” his body was taken to the state pathology lab on April 23 and autopsied the next day.
The family was notified immediately of the death. After the autopsy, they sought the return of the body to arrange a memorial, Gerald Brissette said in a telephone interview from his home in the Sandy Hook section in Newtown, Conn.
“We were calling the medical examiner’s office every day,” he said. “They kept blowing us off, saying ‘we’re not sure that we can identify him.’ They were just trying to cover (themselves) and buy some more time and find out what happened.”
The body was mistakenly released on April 25, officials said. The medical examiner’s office confused Brissette’s body with another body, although both were properly tagged and identification should have been checked during the release process, according to the state’s executive office of public safety.
Gov. Deval Patrick placed the state’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Mark Flomenbaum, on a paid leave of absence on Thursday after his office reported the body missing. Flomenbaum remains suspended pending an investigation.
Patrick announced Friday that Boston pathologist Dr. Frederick Bieber will serve as interim chief medical examiner.
When State Police found the other body still in the medical examiner’s office, they dug up that person’s grave and found Brissette’s body in the coffin, officials said.
They did not identify the other body.
Flomenbaum did not return a call to his home on Saturday. Calls to the medical examiner’s office Saturday were referred to the state’s Executive Office of Public Safety. That office’s spokesman, Charles McDonald, said steps are being taken to make sure similar mishaps never happen again.
“We agree with the family that this is unacceptable,” McDonald said Saturday.
Gerald Brissette said he’s sympathetic with workers in the medical examiner’s office and proposed the state open more locations to lessen the workload.
“It sounds like they were overwhelmed,” he said. I think there will be some positive things.”
In March, Public Safety Secretary Kevin Burke ordered the medical examiner’s office to clear a backlog of bodies being stored there. A lack of adequate storage space forced workers to stack corpses and place some in a refrigerated truck meant for temporary holding.
State officials have said the company hired to investigate problems at the state crime lab would expand its review to include the medical examiner’s office.
Meanwhile, Gerald Brissette recalled his brother as “very kind, artistic and friendly.”
“He’s got a million friends out there,” he said. “He’d help anyone.”
They grew up in the town of Stoneham, a Boston suburb, he said. There were eight children, and Tom was the third youngest.
Tom Brissette was the singer in a rock band in high school and excelled in soccer, his brother said. He worked for General Electric before being laid off. He was remembered as a skilled carpenter and he started a contracting business that failed in 2000 when he began to suffer from diabetes.
Nancy Meegan, Brissette’s girlfriend, told The Cape Cod Times that Brissette ended up homeless, which is how the pair met. Recently, he received housing assistance to rent a room at the Cavalier Motor Lodge in Yarmouth.
“At least he didn’t die in the woods,” Richard “Cowboy” McBride told the newspaper. “He was always saying he didn’t want to die in the woods.”
Gerald Brissette added: “He’s probably glad he’s the one who uncovered a major problem going on up there.”
AP-ES-05-05-07 1751EDT
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