Florida officers mislabeled the stays of two Irish nationals who died of drug overdoses, resulting in a mix-up of their autopsies and the “extremely possible” cremation of the flawed physique, authorities mentioned.
Kane Mitchell, 30, and Luke Comiskey, 31, died in April 2022 after consuming fentanyl-laced medicine considered one of them purchased from a person he’d allegedly met a day earlier.
The 2 mates have been from the Dublin space and residing collectively in Pinellas Park, close to St. Petersburg. Their employer found their our bodies of their condo whereas checking on them after they missed work, the Pinellas Park Police Division mentioned.
A Florida funeral residence shipped the lads’s stays to Eire, in accordance with a letter from a Florida medical expert’s workplace. One was cremated and the opposite was not, per the households’ needs.
However in July, three months after their deaths, the lads’s households observed discrepancies within the post-mortem studies that led authorities to find an error within the labeling of the stays, the letter mentioned.
The lads’s households then realized that Mitchell’s stays had been buried in Comiskey’s household plot in Dublin, in accordance with correspondence between authorities in Florida and an Irish consulate common. Additionally they discovered that Comiskey, not Mitchell, had been cremated.
CNN just lately discovered of the mix-up from a legislation enforcement supply who requested to not be recognized as a result of they’re not licensed to talk with the media in regards to the case. A CNN request below open-records legislation revealed paperwork confirming the mix-up, together with letters from the Irish consulate in Atlanta to the medical expert’s workplace and investigators concerned within the case.
The lads’s identification was finished appropriately once they have been first found, however the error doubtless occurred when their tags “have been crossed up” in subsequent labeling, William Pellan, director of Investigations on the District Six Medical Examiner Workplace, wrote in an August 2022 letter to the consulate common of Eire in Atlanta, which oversees the southeastern US.
Because of this, it’s extremely doubtless that the cremated stays, initially believed to be of Kane Mitchell, have been these of Luke Comiskey, the August 2022 letter mentioned.
“Our workplace could be very remorseful in regards to the tragedy of this case,” Pellan wrote.
“Clearly they’ve been by way of quite a lot of late with the lack of their member of the family and subsequent misidentification and burial of his stays in Luke Comiskey’s plot,” the letter mentioned.
One sufferer met the alleged drug vendor a day earlier than the lads died
CNN has reached out to the households of each victims. The Irish Division of International Affairs mentioned it’s “conscious of the case” and is offering consular help. A spokesperson declined to offer extra data, saying the Division doesn’t touch upon the main points of particular person circumstances.
It’s unclear how lengthy Luke and Mitchell had lived in Florida or the place they labored.
The person who police allege bought the medicine, James Richard Peoples III, 35, was arrested final month and charged with two counts of first-degree homicide of their deaths.
Peoples exchanged textual content messages with one of many victims, and mentioned he’d get him “powder” – a time period he acknowledged normally refers to cocaine, in accordance with an arrest affidavit from Pinellas Park police. He admitted he drove to the victims’ condo and bought narcotics, however denied offering the fentanyl, the arrest affidavit mentioned.
The general public defender’s workplace, which is representing Peoples, declined to remark. His subsequent court docket listening to is scheduled for March 18.
The combo-up of the lads’s stays was found three months later
The paperwork revealed bits and items of what occurred within the wake of the lads’s deaths.
Within the August 2022 letter, the District Six Medical Examiner Workplace mentioned it assigned case numbers to every sufferer after police alerted them to the deaths.
“Per the wishes and on the course of the households, preparations have been made for each decedents to be transferred to Eire for providers and last disposition,” the letter mentioned. “Each decedents have been launched from the Medical Examiner Workplace to a neighborhood funeral residence in St. Petersburg, Florida, on April 27, 2022.”
After a toxicology report listed fentanyl toxicity as the reason for loss of life for each, the medical expert’s workplace emailed the post-mortem studies to the respective households in July 2022.
That’s when the victims’ family members found the mix-up, in accordance with the August letter from the medical expert’s workplace.
The letter mentioned they famous some discrepancies within the bodily descriptions contained within the post-mortem and notified the medical expert’s workplace two weeks afterward August 12, 2022.
After digital pictures, previous paperwork, and verifying the previous accidents and tattoos on the victims, the medical expert’s workplace decided that their stays had been mislabeled. It’s unclear at what level the mix-up occurred, the letter mentioned.
“It has been decided with a excessive diploma of certainty that the 2 decedents seem to have been mislabeled on the location of loss of life or upon supply to the Medical Examiner Workplace,” the letter mentioned.
“This very unlucky mistake resulted in studies of post-mortem being produced with the flawed decedent identify, however extra considerably, the decedents being launched from the Medical Examiner Workplace with the flawed identification affixed to identification labels,” the letter mentioned.
The District Six Medical Examiner Workplace didn’t reply to CNN’s request for extra particulars. In an e mail to CNN, it mentioned the victims’ circumstances are “below lively legal investigation.”
Pellan, of the District Six Medical Examiner Workplace, mentioned in his August letter that his workplace launched an investigation as quickly because the household notified them of their considerations.
“Each households have been knowledgeable from the very starting that any prices related to this very unlucky chain of occasions can be paid for by this workplace,” he wrote. “I’ve spoken to each (households) a number of instances to offer them with updates and maintaining open strains of communication. I’ve spoken with each funeral houses in Eire in regards to the scenario.”
Plans have been underway to exhume Mitchell’s physique and ensure his identification by way of tattoos and DNA evaluation, Pellan wrote in August 2022. He mentioned his workplace was ready to ship their forensic pathologists to Dublin on the day of the exhumation to assist confirm the victims’ identities.
CNN couldn’t decide if the physique had been exhumed and recognized. Pellan didn’t reply to CNN’s request for remark.
Authorities warn of the lethal perils of fentanyl abuse
Fentanyl is about 100 instances stronger than morphine, one other widespread opioid.
There are legit medical makes use of for fentanyl, together with treating most cancers sufferers who’re in excessive ache, in accordance with Dr. Leana Wen, a former Baltimore well being commissioner. However drug sellers can also manufacture it in unlawful labs, resulting in an epidemic of overdose deaths in recent times.
From 2003 to 2020, Individuals who died whereas visiting Florida have been 63% extra more likely to be victims of a drug overdose in comparison with those that died whereas visiting different states, in accordance with a report launched in February. The report, revealed within the journal Harm Prevention, reviewed over 47 million US loss of life certificates.
Florida’s Division of Legislation Enforcement reported 6,157 opioid-related deaths in 2022, the latest yr for which knowledge is on the market — a 4% lower from the earlier yr.
“The devastating penalties of fentanyl abuse are clear on this heartbreaking incident,” Pinellas Park Chief of Police Adam Geissenberger mentioned in an announcement. “… We’ll pursue justice relentlessly and proceed our efforts to safeguard our group from the perils of this lethal substance.”
After the Florida deaths, shocked members of the Irish group in New York, the place each males had frolicked, hosted a memorial service.
On the Might 2022 service at St. Barnabas Church within the Bronx borough of New York Metropolis, mourners turned emotional as they shared recollections of the 2 males they described as shut mates.
One pal joked about Comiskey’s hanging appears to be like, joking that males held their ladies nearer each time he walked right into a room. He described Comiskey as a loyal pal, an important Gaelic soccer and soccer participant and boxer, and an avid traveler. Comiskey beloved taking part in the guitar and had been to a number of international locations, together with Australia and Spain.
Mitchell was remembered as “jack of all trades” who thrived outside. He was obsessed with fishing and tenting, and would pitch a tent out in nature even on wet days, one other pal mentioned.
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