Why does it take a coroner up/over a year to determine a person’s cause of death?

Question

The Irish coroner just announced Sinead O’Connor died of natural causes (COPD and asthma – smokers take note). Why did it take them so long to figure that out? Do autopsy results always take over a year? What’s the hold up?

In: Other

Answer 1

Toxicology reports can take time. They have to isolate and grow cultures and the labs have pretty good backups too.

I was a CPS Investigator, and on fatality cases we couldn’t ever wait for the ME to release the report because it’s a minimum 4-6 month turn around.

Talking to the ME is huge though because they can tell you what they suspect but can’t specifically nail down.