Family blames cops for decomposed body

The family of a Hanover man whose body turned up at a funeral home in a vast state of decomposition after he was shot and killed by the police is now threatening to sue the State.

Pedro Renardo Pearce, 41, was fatally shot at his home in Orange Bay on May 27, after he allegedly attacked police officers with a machete. The lawmen had gone to warn him over an incident where he allegedly used a stone to break the window of a motor vehicle in his community.

Pearce was transported to the Noel Holmes Hospital in Lucea, Hanover, where he was pronounced dead and the body viewed by investigators attached to the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM). It is alleged that following the investigations by INDECOM and the police, Pearce's body was placed in a body bag and mistakenly left unattended for two days near the hospital's morgue. The body was discovered on May 29, after a hospital employee smelled a foul odour and stumbled upon Pearce's decomposed body.

Margally Pearce, Pedro's sister, said that she and other relatives came to witness her brother's post mortem on Tuesday, and were shocked when they were told that his body was so decomposed, it might be traumatising for them to view it.

"We still have not gotten justice for his death, and now only to be hearing that they forget his body at the hospital for over two days, and let it decompose," the angry woman stated. " I will now be seeking the services of a lawyer because I will not leave it like this. I demand justice, and I will not stop until I get justice."

Robert Doyley, the owner and operator of the Doyley's Funeral Home, told THE STAR that the home issued a statement to the hospital, the police and to INDECOM, "as to the status that the body was in when we picked it up."

"The state of the body was so bad that the team which went to pick it up had to leave, because they were not prepared to deal with the nature of such decomposed body. So I had to send another team to the location to pick it up with special equipment, that is how bad it was," Doyley said.