Were Medical Examiner's complaints politically motivated? Not so, funeral directors say.

Letters recently sent to Escambia County Commissioners complaining about the Medical Examiner’s Office treatment of bodies were never meant to be made public, said two of the three funeral directors who wrote them.

They also said they wrote the letters after meeting with Escambia County Commissioner Steven Barry, who encouraged the funeral directors to write them.

The owners and directors of several Pensacola funeral homes sent letters to Escambia County Commissioners in April listing several complaints about the Medical Examiner's Office. Their issues included the condition of bodies after autopsy being “butchered,” unclean and placed in bags that leak, as well as delays with filing paperwork or listing misleading or inaccurate causes of death. Accusations the Medical Examiner's Office said were largely "not substantiated," according to the organization's leadership.

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Prior to writing the letters, Richard “Rick” Bailey, Jr., owner and funeral director in charge of Waters Hibbert, said he and three other Pensacola-based funeral directors met with Barry at a restaurant owned by one of the commissioner’s family members to discuss their ongoing concerns with the Medical Examiner’s Office.

“I had gotten a call from a funeral director, and he said that he was meeting with a county commissioner, and we could address our concerns with him,” said Bailey. “I’m thinking that he could have an avenue of accessing the Medical Examiner’s Office that I did not.”

Bailey said during the meeting all four funeral directors talked about their issues with the District 1 Medical Examiner’s Office, which handles autopsies for Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties, and that Barry and another funeral director encouraged them to write letters to the commission outlining their complaints.

Three of the four funeral directors sent letters to the county, including those with Waters Hibbert, Pensacola Memorial Gardens and Trahan Family Funeral Home.

Richard Trahan, owner and funeral director of Trahan Family Funeral Home, said he helped arrange the meeting because he and other funeral directors were having similar issues. He and Bailey agreed that until recently, it could be difficult to get through to the “powers-that-be” at the Medical Examiner’s Office to voice their concerns.

Trahan said he reached out to Barry because he’s the commissioner who represents the district where Trahan lives in Molino, and he thought that would be the best place to start.

Barry did not return a call for comment.

“I’m the one that went to my county commissioner over concerns I had,” Trahan said. “I went to him with some concerns and all the other funeral homes have had the same concerns. This is not some super-secret political thing. This was something where a group of funeral homes got together, and we voiced our concerns.”

Escambia dead set against moving Medical Examiner's Office

The funeral directors’ letters come at a time when Escambia County commissioners are pushing back against a proposal to build a new, multi-million-dollar, Medical Examiner’s Office facility in Santa Rosa County. The main facility for District 1 has historically been located in Escambia County, the largest individual user of medical examiner services in the four-county area, with a satellite office in Okaloosa County.

District One Medical Examiner Support Inc. or DOMES, the organization tasked with overseeing operations for the medical examiner’s operations in District 1, had hoped to solidify a funding agreement between the counties for a new stand-alone facility in Santa Rosa County.

DOMES is asking Escambia County to consider funding 32% of the project, which could cost at least $14 million to build, while maintaining the current medical examiner’s office at Sacred Heart Hospital as a satellite office. That building that is also in need of major upgrades.

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Most Escambia County commissioners do not support that plan and last month made it clear to DOMES Director of Operations Dan Schebler during a commission meeting that they wanted to keep the main facility in Pensacola because Escambia County has the most calls for service and is being asked to foot a larger part of the bill to fund the new facility.

When the letters the funeral home directors wrote complaining about the Medical Examiner’s Office became public, some questioned the timing. Both Bailey and Trahan said their concerns are legitimate and they stand by them, adding they have little interest in where the new medical examiner’s facility will go or being involved with county politics.

“It should have never been handled the way that it was,” said Bailey, who is frustrated with public coverage of the letters and felt used. “There was no purpose in it. How that happened served no purpose for me, the public, or the Medical Examiner’s Office.”

Trahan said the meeting was not politically motivated and that he went to the county instead of the Medical Examiner’s Commission, the agency that oversees state medical examiners, because he thought addressing it locally would be a good first step.

“The Medical Examiner’s Commission never entered my mind to go to,” Trahan said. “I went to the county because you see in the news (the Medical Examiner’s Office) are always discussing stuff with the county, so that’s where I started from. I don’t feel like I was being used and I don’t think Steve Barry intended that. I think he generally cared and if we’re having issues, we should be able to go voice those issues.”

Pensacola funeral director's letters were posted as public records

Both Trahan and Bailey said they did not expect their letters to become public. However, once their letters were sent to Escambia County Commissioners, the correspondence became public record. Escambia County Commissioner Jeff Bergosh said he received copies of the letters from Escambia County attorney Alison Rogers and he posted portions of them to his personal blog, where he regularly talks about issues that impact county residents.

Bergosh said he found the allegations from three different funeral directors shocking and newsworthy and he posted about the letters, like he does similar county issues that cross his desk.

“The reason I post information on my blog is because I want the widest audience in the county to see what’s going on,” said Bergosh. “When I get something from the attorney, that’s a public record. I have every right to put it out and I think people want to know about stuff like this. That way it can be resolved and apparently, we’re coming to a resolution.”

Local media picked up on the funeral director’s complaints and they were widely reported. Once word got out to the Medical Examiner’s Office, the funeral directors say District 1 Medical Examiner Dr. Deanna Oleske met with them to discuss their concerns.

How Pensacola funeral directors plan to move forward

Trahan and Bailey said communication with the organization is already better and they’re hopeful about other issues as well but say there is still room for improvement.

“We met with them for several hours,” Bailey said. “Everybody addressed their issues, and they gave me answers and I know some policies have changed. My main problem in the very beginning was accessibility to the powers that be, which they rectified that problem as well.”

Trahan said, “We did have a meeting with the Medical Examiner’s Office. I did think ground was somewhat made, but I’m still of the wait-and-see attitude.”

A funeral director for Pensacola Memorial Gardens also wrote a letter to the county and according to Bailey attended the meeting with Barry. Vice President of Operations for Pensacola Memorial Gardens David Schneidmiller said he was not at the meeting and was not aware of anyone else from the funeral home attending, either.

“I think our comments that my funeral director made just come from emotion, where medical examiners, they’re all business," Schneidmiller said last week. "They do so many of them and we get emotionally touched with our families, so I think that’s why the comments were a little bit harsh on our end.”

He recently said they have not yet met with Medical Examiner’s Office about the issues Pensacola Memorial Gardens funeral director Jerald Mitchell outlined in his letter to commissioners. Schneidmiller said they continue to take a wait and see approach as to how the medical examiner’s office responds, but he said they are already seeing some progress.

Dr. Oleske has not returned a call for comment, but in previous interviews about the letters Schebler said the Medical Examiner’s Office is working with funeral home directors to address their concerns.

“I have no benefit from harming the medical examiner,” said Trahan. “From what I’ve seen out of the Medical Examiner’s Office here recently, I’ve been very satisfied with. What I don’t like is this is trying to be made into something political and that’s not anything we were intending to do. It almost makes you scared to go talk to your leadership in the county if this is how everything is going to be spun.”

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola funeral directors Medical Examiner complaints raise eyebrows