By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Wednesday, October 16, 1991
The Record (New Jersey) | 6 Star | NEWS | Page B03
The body of Edward Gee Jr. is expected to be returned home to Englewood this weekend for proper burial 16 weeks after his family first reported him missing and 10 weeks after they discovered he had died in a New York City hospital.
Gee’s family had the body, which was buried July 9 under the wrong name in Potter’s Field, exhumed for verification, which is expected to be done Thursday, William J. Ewing, the family’s lawyer, said Tuesday.
A wake has been planned for 7 to 9 p.m. Friday at Nesbitt Funeral Home in Englewood. The funeral will be held at the funeral home at 10 a.m. Saturday, with burial to follow at Fair Lawn Cemetery.
Gee, 32, had disappeared after work on June 20. His mother, father, and a sister went to the Englewood Police Department on June 28 to report that they had not seen him and were worried.
Gee was conscious and was talking with paramedics when the New York City Emergency Medical Service picked him up at 172nd Street and Broadway on June 20 and took him to Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Ewing said.
Although he had several pieces of identification in his wallet when he died of acute cocaine intoxication at the hospital that night, the hospital sent Gee’s family a bill for $278 for emergency room services on July 7 and told them that he had been discharged June 27. He was buried on Hart Island, a city burial ground for unclaimed bodies, three weeks later as an indigent with the name Edward Lee Jr.
The city Medical Examiner’s Office and city police said they were not responsible for the misidentification. Leslie Bernstein, a spokeswoman for Columbia-Presbyterian, said the hospital had completed an investigation into the case but said the results were confidential.
“We have not received any formal explanation from the hospital at all,” Ewing said. The family declined comment Tuesday, referring all questions to Ewing.
Following weeks of investigation by Englewood police and the Bergen County Sheriff’s Department, and after the family received two bills from the hospital, the family identified a photograph of Gee’s body at the Medical Examiner’s Office on Aug. 5.
“The family didn’t waste any time,” Ewing said. “The family immediately signed all necessary documents and paid the necessary fees for the return of their son. We have no explanation for why so much time was necessary to return the body from the city cemetery.”
A private forensic pathologist hired by the family will observe Thursday when the Medical Examiner’s Office is expected to verify that the exhumed body is the same as the one the family identified in the photograph, Ewing said.
“There is no doubt that the family will file a lawsuit immediately for redress in this matter,” Ewing said. “However, the formal investigation has not yet been completed, and the family specifically wants to complete the autopsy and the positive and definitive identification before the suit is commenced.”
The family filed notice of a $6 million claim with the city on Oct. 9, Ewing said.
Keywords: ENGLEWOOD; MAN; DEATH; NEW YORK CITY; CEMETERY; ERROR
ID: 17358271 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)
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