Official handling of man’s death distresses relatives, who fear that denial of autopsy might signal a cover-up

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Police Headquarters on American Road

Family members of a Brownes Avenue man are describing as “cruel” the manner in which his death is being handled, and they fear that something is amiss.

According to reports, the decomposing body of 56-year-old Collin George was found in his home in October. The cause of death was given as a heart attack, resulting from complications of diabetes and hypertension, and this has since been signed off by the coroner.

However, while not doubting the given cause of death, George’s family wished to be certain; therefore, they requested that an autopsy be performed.

Patricia Fenton, George’s cousin, says the family has been denied the right to have his death investigated by a post mortem.

She says that George’s swollen body was discovered on his kitchen floor on October 15, after a neighbour reported that he had not been seen since Monday, October 12.

Fenton says she was told that George had complained of a headache and stomach ache before retiring to his home – but she did not know him to be ill otherwise.

Neighbours reportedly made several attempts to contact him by calling at the house and via phone, since his house lights had remained on since Monday. They did not get a response, she says.

After her son made a check at the house, he concluded that George might be dead, since there was a foul odour emanating from the home and a number of flies swarming the property.

The Police and officials from the Central Board of Health subsequently arrived at the home and sprayed the premises before forcing entry.

Fenton complains that the Police went ahead and notified a funeral home about removing the body without asking where she would prefer it to be taken. And there have been several discrepancies pertaining to her cousin’s death and post mortem, she claims.

The grieving woman says the family was told that a post mortem could not be carried out due to the state of the body. However, she does not accept that explanation, and says that an autopsy was done on another relative, Bruce “Jungle” Greenaway, after his decomposing body was found, two weeks after he was reported missing.

Fenton says the family was insisting on an autopsy because George’s medical condition could have resulted in other causes of death. She even speculated that he could have been poisoned, as well.

By now, however, the family has given up on getting the examination done, since the undertaker has already chemically treated the body. Further, since the coroner has already signed off on the death certificate, allowing the body to be prepared for interment, stopping the burial would require a court order, she says.

To date, George has not been buried, and Fenton believes that a cover-up is taking place.

Since the lockdown in March of this year, a string of sudden deaths – of mostly males – has created suspicion that these persons succumbed to the coronavirus. In almost every case, the authorities have concluded that they died of pre-existing conditions. — SOURCE: REAL News

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16 COMMENTS

  1. If officials don’t conduct COVID tests, then they can pretend the numbers are low

    If officials don’t do autopsies of the many sudden deaths, then they can pretend that these people died of something other than COVID which has been known to cause sudden deaths especially in males.

  2. If those numbers are accurate that would tell us a lot

  3. Just getting the feeling that this government thinks we’re all imbeciles to be placated and fooled

    Sadly there seem to be enough fools to keep this sham going for now

    We need the press to hold these people accountable.

  4. Did any family member check on this man to endure he had food and taking his medication? If he were diabetic and had hypertension, these could have caused his death. A lot of people in Antigua don’t have enough to eat and are eating donated foods laden with salt, bad for hypertension and diabetes.
    Antiguans should observe the protocols and if unwell and suspect Covid, get tested. When people die suddenly in North America, the governments declare they had Covid and bury or cremate them. Not even the families can see the bodies. What is the purpose of pursuing this except to give credit to “Real News”. Who cares if Antigua is underreporting the number of Covid cases. If a lot people were sick people would know. Best advise, protect yourself and go out only if need to.

    • 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 Miss Jane Doe move to the head of the class. Its like these covid experts don’t understand. Even if the virus outbrwak in this age of social media when everybody have a smart phone and everybody business on facebook the whole world would know🤦🏾‍♀️

    • Don’t you realize that puts everyone who lives in Antigua in jeopardy?

      So many people in Antigua are not talking this pandemic seriously.

      Unless there’s quickly a safe vaccine that is available to Antiguans, this is not going to end well for the people of this country.

      What is truly sad is that this is a small island country – a place that is geographically well suited to eliminate the virus from the population

      A place where we could all be living normal lives right now were it not for the greed of a small minority of rich powerful people.

      If you live in Antigua and you’re not concerned about how grossly mismanaged this pandemic has been then I have to question your intelligence.

      However, to answer your question I’m sure it matters to the couple dozen people who suddenly died over the last few months. If they died of COVID those deaths were preventable.

      I’m sorry that you’re so callous about the loss of human life.

      As for the real news, there is a reason that Antigua has been rated as a high risk country by the US, by Barbados and other islands.

      Failing a class and then negotiating a better grade (by hook or crook) does not make you a good student

      And in this case will not keep you or I safe when the original problem of failure to test and quarantine the thousands of high risk folks the government lets in every month still exists

      • No one is callous about the loss of human life and I certainly have sympathy for anyone who has lost a love one whether from Covid or otherwise.
        President Trump and his inner circle are tested regularly and they still got Covid. The US has just surpassed 13 mill Covid cases out of a population of over 300mill. Has the US with all its resources tested all of its citizens? You can be tested negative today and positive a week later. Most people who contact Covid recover. The death rate is somewhere about 2%.
        The Antiguan government needs to do a rapid test on all individuals entering the country and all Antiguans need to wear masks when out in in public, and practice regular hand washing. And if they are sick get tested.

        • I say that as an American. The US response has been an utter failure.

          But there are other countries that have been much more successful. Look at what they are doing. They are not letting anyone into their country without quarantining them or testing them.

          Antigua should not be trying to emulate the US response or use it as justification for Antigua’s own negligent handling of the pandemic.

          COVID is not something to be taken lightly. No one knows if most people recover. The virus could lay dormant in one’s body forever for all we know as some other viruses such as HIV and HSV do.

          We’ve already seen a few hundred cases of reinfection or reemergence after a person supposedly recovered.

          There are also children dying from it. In the US 78% of those children are black or brown.

          The disease disproportionately affects black and brown people. Antigua as a majority Black Country should be especially concerned.

          This is not the flu. This is not something to minimize. We don’t even know the true origins of this pathogen. The wet market story is now almost universally rejected by scientists.

          My point is the Antiguan government should be first and foremost concerned with preventing the spread of this virus on the island. That means they have to test and quarantine EVERYONE they let in especially if they are coming from high COVID areas like the US.

          It seems the primary goal of the Antiguan government is to promote tourism even if that means hiding deaths and case numbers.

          I’m sure you see the problem with that. Look at the standards of the other islands. They require a test within 72 hours but Antigua says 7 days. They are also testing and quarantining people on arrival. Antigua is not.

          • We keep hearing that this virus disproportionately affects brown and black people. Where is the statistics? I suspect this has to do with vaccinating as many black and brown as possible with unproven vaccines to see the outcome. Too many Americans are grossly overweight and need to start taking care of themselves.
            I do agree with you that all incoming persons should be tested.
            What Antiguans need more Than anything are funds to provide for their needs. There are many individuals who do not have the resources to do this.
            The economy of Antigua is heavily dependent on tourism and with most of the hotels closed a significant number of people are unemployed. What is the Antiguan government and citizens to do when the government says it does not have funds to provide assistance to the unemployed? The government and the people are really between a rock and a hard place.
            Most of the tourists come from countries with high numbers of Covid so these people should not be allowed in unless they can be given a rapid test at the airport. Most visitors come for one or two weeks. Are we going to quarantine them for their entire vacation?
            If you ask me, Antiguans need to employ the cures their ancestors used, and develop their immune systems.. And these cures are found in the bush.

          • The same thing has been shown in the UK even accounting for socioeconomic status and weight, comorbidities, etc.

            “Individuals of Black and Asian ethnicity are at increased risk of COVID-19 infection compared to White individuals;”

            https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30374-6/fulltext#:~:text=Individuals%20of%20Black%20and%20Asian,of%20ITU%20admission%20and%20death.

            “Out of 121 deaths among under-21s, 45 percent were among Hispanics, 29 percent among blacks and four percent among American Indians or Alaskan Natives, according to the study by the Centers for Disease Control ”

            https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-minorities-covid-pediatric-deaths.html

            We just know too little about this virus at this point to be cavalier about it.

            Now, if it’s true that the borders of Antigua had to be opened (which I do not agree with), I truly don’t understand why Antigua can’t have the same protocols as Barbados or Jamaica or even some of the other small islands.

            Antigua literally has the worst protocols and releases the least amount of information about COVID.

            It leads one to only one conclusion which is that the Antiguan government is not being honest about what’s going on here.

            It just makes no sense to require a test SEVEN DAYS prior to arrival. That will weed out almost no one who might bring COVID here. Why not 72 hours before flight like all the other islands are requiring?

            Also, why not test everyone who arrives and charge them for the test? Other islands are doing this.

            There’s so many things that could be done but that this government refuses to do it.

            So now we have a situation where tourism is in decline because of the pandemic anyway and so there’s still lots of people out of work.

            AND we have a situation where people’s health is in jeopardy because thousands of potentially infected people are given free reign to enter Antigua and spread disease.

            That’s a recipe for a disaster.

            I’ve been paying close attention to the numbers in several countries. I check them every day. And the numbers that Antigua is putting out do not pass the laugh test.

            We’ve seen what happened in NY and in Italy and Spain earlier this year. I don’t want to see that happen in Antigua, which is a small island that is much less equipped to handle a massive outbreak.

            So far the strategy is just to pretend that everything is fine. That is not a sane strategy.

  5. Y’all sound like Qanon Conspiracy bunch ….Y’all sound so foolish..
    And I’m guessing that y’all also think that the vaccine has a tracking mechanism in it because the NWO coming for us..

  6. The Covid virus affect mostly brown and black people ? What a bunch of hog wash ! And the Earth is flat and you will fall over the edge shuups !

    • There seems to be a great deal of magical thinking in Antigua

      The idea that if we just ignore a problem, then it’s not a problem

      That’s not going to work in life and it surely will not keep you safe in a pandemic

      Wake up people

    • I am sorry that you are not keeping up with things, but it’s really strange that you’re joking about something that has been well documented and is serious.

      “Research increasingly shows that racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by coronavirus disease ”

      “According to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native people had an age-adjusted COVID-19 hospitalization rate about 5.3 times that of non-Hispanic white people. COVID-19 hospitalization rates among non-Hispanic Black people and Hispanic or Latino people were both about 4.7 times the rate of non-Hispanic white people.”

      https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/expert-answers/coronavirus-infection-by-race/faq-20488802

      “Death rates from Covid-19 in England have been higher among people of black and Asian origin than any other ethnic group, a government-ordered inquiry has found.”

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/02/covid-19-death-rate-in-england-higher-among-bame-people

      Study after study has shown this. I don’t know why you find it funny and amusing.

      • These people putting out these statistics have an agenda. Vaccinate as many black people as possible with vaccines containing who knows what. The vast majority of black people getting Covid are ones working in health care and the many black and brown people working in long term care facilities. Wasn’t it a great person, can’t recall his name at the moment, who said that statistics are darn lies?
        Black people have to take care of themselves and stop buying into the narrative that blacks have more Covid. Remember white people have never said anything positive about black people.

        • Black people are dying from COVID at disproportionately high rates. That is a fact.

          This is a majority Black country and so the pandemic should be of even greater concern. It should be taken more seriously not less seriously.

          You should be concerned about why this is happening and how to prevent it.

          I don’t know all of the whys but I do know that not getting infected in the first place would prevent it.

          The only reason people are getting infected in Antigua is the failure to properly screen and quarantine people entering the country.

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