In body mix-up, a past case echoes

Technician had role in notorious error

The same technician who released the wrong body to a funeral home from the state medical examiner's office the day after Christmas was involved in another body mix-up nearly two years ago that led to the firing of chief medical examiner Dr. Mark A. Flomenbaum.

Lance Anderson was suspended for five days after he released the wrong body from the Worcester medical examiner's office on Dec. 26 without scanning a toe tag that correctly identified the man's remains. The mistake was discovered three days later when a forensic nurse working for the examiner's officer viewed the body at a Worcester cemetery shortly before it was to be cremated.

On April 25, 2007, Anderson was captured on an office surveillance video removing a body from a cooler at the medical examiner's office in Boston and leaving it unattended in a hallway, according to State Police reports. The body of the Cape Cod man went missing for nine days, triggering an intense search until police discovered it in another man's grave.

State Police concluded that another technician was responsible in that case because he released the wrong body to a funeral home without verifying its identity. Though Anderson was not faulted or disciplined, he acknowledged a "big miscommunication" with the other technician. He assured police that he had been trained to scan toe tags before releasing bodies and to require funeral homes to verify the identities, according to the police reports.

In last month's incident, state officials said, Anderson admitted he made a mistake. In addition to his suspension, he was transferred from the Worcester office to the medical examiner's Boston office, where he will receive more supervision.

Anderson could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for the state's public safety office said Anderson did not wish to talk.

Flomenbaum's lawyer said the latest incident bolsters his contention that the former chief was unfairly blamed for problems that existed before and after his tenure.

"The thing that led to his discharge is the very thing that happened here," said the attorney, Thomas R. Kiley. "Mark Flomenbaum was scapegoated at the time for problems that were not of his making."

But state officials and district attorneys said the latest body incident, though disturbing, is an aberration in an office that has made significant progress in the past couple of years.

"It definitely has improved," said Michael O'Keefe, Cape and Islands district attorney. "Twenty to 30 years of neglect have allowed a system to deteriorate, and we are on the road in the last couple of budget cycles to fix some of them."

Flomenbaum, who had been hired by Governor Mitt Romney in 2005 with a five-year plan to overhaul the medical examiner's office, was fired by Governor Deval Patrick in August 2007 after the Cape Cod man's body was lost. It also followed the discovery that an increase in autopsies caused unclaimed bodies to accumulate in the office's Boston headquarters and in a refrigerated truck at the building.

Two days after Flomenbaum's dismissal, a consulting firm hired by the state released a scathing report finding the office was on "the verge of collapse" from extreme mismanagement.

Flomenbaum filed a wrongful termination suit, arguing that the governor didn't have the authority to fire him and that he was being unfairly blamed for preexisting problems and the state's failure to give him resources to deal with them. The Supreme Judicial Court ruled last year that Patrick's dismissal of Flomenbaum was legal and "not arbitrary or capricious."

John Grossman, the public safety undersecretary of forensic science and technology, said the medical examiner's office has improved dramatically since Flomenbaum's departure, with substantial changes in management, training, and procedures.

Technicians, for the first time, will be required to take a competency test under a program slated to start this month, Grossman said, adding that it had been planned before the technician released the wrong body. "It's not a disciplinary issue; it's our way of checking competency," he said.

During Flomenbaum's tenure, he increased the number of pathologists from five to 11. He hired investigators who went to the scene of all unattended or suspicious deaths and increased the number of autopsies, from 2,694 in 2005 to 3,552 in 2006.

Grossman said the office conducts fewer autopsies now, limiting them to cases in which it believes they are necessary. The office conducted autopsies in 60 percent of the cases it handled between July and September last year, compared with 83 percent of the cases during the same period in 2006.

Grossman said he receives a weekly update on the number of bodies awaiting autopsy, so that they don't accumulate at the medical examiner's office again.

"Obviously any situation that involves the erroneous release of a body is extremely troublesome," said Geline Williams, executive director of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association. But she said the district attorneys receive briefings on progress at the medical examiner's office and "it is noticeable, the improvement in the standards, in the routine practices, and in the accountability."