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?
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Lots of things need to happen, and at each of those stages there is a backlog and delay.
A post mortem may need to be conducted, a specialist toxicologist consulted. Statements need to be written by the involved medical team (which can take months). Then the coroner needs to read it all and decide if a hearing needs to take place, and if so a slot needs to be found.
A basic autopsy is completed very soon after death. Processing of sample from the autopsy can take longer. Priority is given to situations where there’s a suspicion of a crime or hazard to others. That can take a while, but rarely more than a month or two. After that, there’s a process of review and making a report, then sharing the results with next of kin.
Answering the request for public release of the information is a matter that can take longer still. I presume the results were know to the family for months before there was public comment on the matter.
Can next of kin deny an autopsy or other related tests? What are valid reasons and is there a situation that’s exists where next of kin is denied the request?
Not a coroner, but deal with people dying quite often. Most of the haste really goes away once a person dies. There often isnt a huge reason to work quickly after a person is dead. And once a person is dead, nearly anything of a small importance means the other stuff gets side-lined, and this can happen over and over again.
In the ICU we would get a lot of calls from family trying to square away estates. We would address them, but in no way would dealing with paperwork ever take priority over an actively sick patient.
Im sure something similar happens in coroner offices. I imagine there are cases sent there that are pretty low likelihood for actually being part of a crime (I dont know what gets sent to coroners’ offices around the world; not every case goes in NY). But if something reeks of foul play, then Im sure it gets bumped up in terms of importance, and whetever was up next gets pushed back, again and again.
OH I actually used to work at the Coroner’s unit. Not sure how it works around the world but I am pretty sure the reasons are the same.
As others have mentioned, the Autopsy does take place within a couple of days if not a little longer. A dead body starts deteriorating fast even while frozen, so they do prioritize the autopsy but just don’t write the actual reports or findings until much later. In most cases we get a preliminary cause of death based on the Autopsy but that is given by the Forensic pathologist who is separate from the coroner. Its up to the coroner to make the final decision after reading the pathologist’s findings.
1. LOT of backlog. Usually, coroner’s units fall under some ministry or branch of Justice and although they are well funded, they are still subject to govt hiring freezes, etc. So not enough coroners and admin staff to keep up with the demand.
2. Tests and samples have a long turnaround time. The same backlog affects labs and testing centers. I have seen some reports or tests take almost 3 months sometimes to come back to us.
3. A lot of cross-checking and double-checking facts & reports. Calling around to hospitals, expert clinicians, and family physicians to get the medical history of the deceased. It’s not just 1 coroner involved in death investigations, it also includes some form of supervisor or manager who is also a coroner with experience that double checks reports and cause of death to make sure it’s accurate. Even more prevalent in VIP cases.
4. Complicated deaths can require coordinating with police & fire departments. They are just as slow and backlogged so that adds to turnaround times.
There is a pretty good Last Week Tonight episode about coroners.
They adress the shortage of experts and thus the delay, among a lot of other things.
It’s also very different in various jurisdictions. In some places the coroner is a pathologist who is giving a medical report, while in others the coroner is a lawyer (or similar) who weighs evidence including the autopsy as well as other investigations before determining the likely cause of death. The latter can take much longer, even if the autopsy results are clear soon after death.
My brother passed away unexpectedly in October 2022.
The coronial nurse was amazing in how she explained the coronial care for my brother, and answered many questions that we had very carefully and sensitively. She explained a lot of the processes to me during the investigation.
Basically, they moved from least invasive testing procedures, to most invasive testing procedures as they went, reviewing results and looking for definitive causes at each step. Each step took time, depending on what the test was, who had to perform it, and who had to review the results.
Witness advice to the death, along with how long the body has been in place before discovery also plays a part in their investigation.
In our case, my brother had been in place for at least one day before I found him, and this made some testing more difficult and/or less reliable.
There can be literature review required for some cases where the cause is uncommon.
We did not know the definitive cause before my brother’s funeral, but there had been some preliminary evidence that pointed in a certain direction that required expert review. That review took a couple of months. Authoring of the report and finalisation of the cause on the death certificate came after that.
At UMass… it is probably because those tissue samples sit on the loading dock for an average of 6 weeks before anyone bothers to come retrieve them. If it takes more than a month to take an elevator down 2 floors, how long does it take to actually enter the pathology lab?
[There’s a really good series showing indepth what goes on after a death.](https://metro.co.uk/2022/10/19/new-tv-show-goes-inside-the-coroners-office-for-the-first-time-17336307/)
It’s very interesting, there’s postmortems to be done, chemical testing of organs/blood/stomach contents (depending on death/suspicions etc)
Talking to people, time lines created, and a whole report written up, and then often a court case to lay all this down, allow families to have a say and such like right at the end, which has to be put in the calender. It’s not unusual to take a while as they do have to be 100% sure that what they say is cause of death, really is.
Some of the cases featured in the Ch5 show is very interesting as it’s not necessarily what you think to begin with.
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