Mississippi coroner behind botched death notifications says she'll retire
Sharon Grisham-Stewart, the coroner in Hinds County, Mississippi, who faced criticism for burying men in pauper's graves without notifying their families, is stepping down early.
The longtime elected coroner in Hinds County, Mississippi, who faced withering criticism last year for burying men in pauper's graves without notifying their families, is stepping down early.
Sharon Grisham-Stewart, a Democrat, announced Monday that she would retire Dec. 31, three years before the end of her current term. In a statement from her office first reported by local NBC affiliate WLBT, Grisham-Stewart said it was "time to start the next chapter of my life" after 25 years of being on call around the clock. She said she planned to spend more time with her family and explore "personal and professional opportunities."
Her statement did not address the pauper's grave scandal. She has not spoken publicly about it since NBC News began uncovering cases in which the county had buried men without giving their families an opportunity to claim their bodies. Some of those families had reported the men missing to local police.
The mother of one of those men, Jonathan Hankins, confronted Grisham-Stewart in February at the county's pauper's field. During that conversation, captured on a cellphone recording, Grisham-Stewart apologized to Gretchen Hankins and said, "I don't know how to find people."
Coverage of the burials stoked public outrage, prompting the Hinds County Board of Supervisors to enact a policy requiring coroner's office investigators to check missing persons registries, nearby police agencies and other public service offices, as well as social media, to find relatives of people whose bodies had gone unclaimed. Police in the city of Jackson adopted a policy outlining how officers must notify families when a relative has died. And the Justice Department stepped in, saying it would help authorities in Hinds County and Jackson improve their death notification procedures.
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