Lack of resources at York County Coroner’s Office causes delays in death investigations

YORK COUNTY, S.C. — A lack of resources in the York County Coroner’s Office is having a ripple effect on criminal investigations and closure for families who have lost loved ones. Autopsies are being conducted nearly three hours away, and it’s a process that the coroner wants to change.

The problem is that the coroner’s office doesn’t have its own certified forensic pathologist, which is required in homicide investigations and “suspicious deaths,” according to police.

Channel 9′s Tina Terry learned that the problem is having an impact on families and even the police.

Quadrena Adams had to wait for autopsy results to explain just how her son died in a private park near Lake Wylie. York County deputies said TJ Hubert was killed late at night on June 6, but Adams waited seven weeks to get the results.

“It’s tiring, it’s frustrating,” Adams told Channel 9. “It’s so many different emotions, just waiting to find out what’s what.”

York County Coroner Sabrina Gast says many families have to endure those emotions because she doesn’t have what she needs. With every homicide or suspicious death in the county, officials have to travel more than three hours to Charleston to get help from the Medical University of South Carolina.

“If we were to call today, it’s going to be four days out before we can schedule and arrange transport to take a body to Charleston, and if it’s a homicide, that deputy travels with the body,” Gast told Channel 9. “Because MUSC is so busy, it’s typically taking about 12 weeks to get a final autopsy report.”

Gast says she’s asked county leaders for funding to hire its own certified forensic pathologist. She argues that would also save the money being used to travel to Charleston. She also says her staff has outgrown the current coroner’s office building, adding that she wants enough space to house decedents at the office.

On Monday, a spokesperson with the York County Sheriff’s Office told Channel 9 that some of the changes could help speed up investigations.

For Adams, she says she supports anything that brings answers quicker.

“If it is anything that could speed up solving a loved one’s case, giving families closure, giving them answers, I would totally get behind it,” Adams said.

Gast told Channel 9 that county leaders have promised a meeting with architects to talk more about a new building, but she says her request for a certified forensic pathologist has been denied multiple times.

One council member told Channel 9 that he’d be willing to revisit the topic in the future, depending on the cost.

(WATCH BELOW: ‘TJ deserves justice’: Family of man murdered at Lake Wylie park pleads for information)

‘TJ deserves justice’: Family of man murdered at Lake Wylie park pleads for information

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