Waking the Dead to Prove Abuse—Is Exhumation Ethical?
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Virginia Cole died at Woodstock Residence Nursing Home in Illinois on Sept. 10, 2006. She was 78 years old. Although afflicted with Alzheimer’s, Cole was in good overall health according to Steven Levin, her family’s attorney. After a former Woodstock Residence employee made claims that a colleague administered lethal doses of morphine to residents, Illinois State Police spearheaded an investigation into the nursing home. Cole’s children, Vickie Lund and Kevin Cole, had no idea their mother’s death was suspicious until the police came questioned them earlier this year. Distressed but eager to learn the truth, Cole’s children sanctioned a forensic exhumation—the removal of a body from the grave to perform a legally mandated autopsy.
Cole’s death certificate cited pneumonia and heart disease as causes of death. On March 16, 2007, state police exhumed her body and oversaw the autopsy, conducted by the McHenry County Coroner’s Office; cemetery officials claim they had no knowledge of the exhumation. In the US, police officials are authorized to perform an exhumation for investigative purposes, but a family can protest in a court of law if it is against their wishes. The results of her autopsy have not been revealed to the public, and both the coroner and state officials have declined to comment due to their “ethical obligation.” This begs the question, at least to me: is it ethical to dig up a body from the grave? According to their attorney, Cole’s family is willing to undergo the emotional trauma and public questioning of their ethics if it leads to the truth—whether or not a nursing home employee contributed to multiple deaths in 2006, and whether their mother was directly affected by the scandal.
Illinois State Police are prepared to exhume more bodies as the investigation unfolds. They have just cause to be suspicious—Woodstock Residence Nursing Home is no stranger to investigation. In 1999, the facility paid a hefty fine for failing to provide adequate care after a resident fell and injured her leg. In 2004, the facility received another fine for poor supervision after a resident made 13 attempts at leaving within just 5 weeks. One of those times, he was found wandering around a major intersection. Was he just lonely, isolated and tired of living in a nursing facility, or was he trying to escape a dangerous living environment? If an employee did administer overdoses, was this just the last in a string of abusive actions, or an act of civil disobedience against existing euthanasia laws?
Until the autopsy results are released, charges are brought—or not—and the investigation resolved, it will be challenging to form any ethically based conclusion. What troubles me is that Virginia Cole is not able to speak her piece—or to rest in peace, for that matter. Did she, in fact, want to die? Would she condone being removed from her grave? The only people left to speak for her are her family members, and their grief and anger may be blinding. As for the people speaking about her—that’s a different story.
Open for debate—
Lori Deschene
Posted in: Editorials, Understanding Elder Abuse
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