The longtime elected coroner in Hinds County, Mississippi, who confronted withering criticism final yr for burying males in pauper’s graves with out notifying their households, is stepping down early.
Sharon Grisham-Stewart, a Democrat, introduced Monday that she would retire Dec. 31, three years earlier than the tip of her present time period. In an announcement from her workplace first reported by native NBC affiliate WLBT, Grisham-Stewart stated it was “time to begin the subsequent chapter of my life” after 25 years of being on name across the clock. She stated she deliberate to spend extra time along with her household and discover “private {and professional} alternatives.”
Her assertion didn’t tackle the pauper’s grave scandal. She has not spoken publicly about it since NBC News started uncovering instances through which the county had buried males with out giving their households a chance to assert their our bodies. Some of these households had reported the boys lacking to native police.
The mom of a kind of males, Jonathan Hankins, confronted Grisham-Stewart in February on the county’s pauper’s area. During that dialog, captured on a cellphone recording, Grisham-Stewart apologized to Gretchen Hankins and stated, “I do not know the best way to discover folks.”
Coverage of the burials stoked public outrage, prompting the Hinds County Board of Supervisors to enact a coverage requiring coroner’s workplace investigators to test lacking individuals registries, close by police companies and different public service places of work, in addition to social media, to search out family of individuals whose our bodies had gone unclaimed. Police within the metropolis of Jackson adopted a coverage outlining how officers should notify households when a relative has died. And the Justice Department stepped in, saying it could assist authorities in Hinds County and Jackson enhance their loss of life notification procedures.
Grisham-Stewart was first elected as Hinds County coroner in 1999 and final gained re-election in 2023. She didn’t instantly return a message searching for remark.
It is unclear who will run the coroner’s workplace after she departs. Robert Graham, president of the Hinds County Board of Supervisors, stated in an interview that on Jan. 1 the board will appoint somebody to function coroner till voters select a everlasting alternative in a particular election to be held in November 2025. The winner will serve out the rest of Grisham-Stewart’s time period, which lasts till the tip of 2027.
Graham praised Grisham-Stewart and stated the pauper’s grave situation was not a priority.
“She’s at all times been skilled, devoted and caring,” Graham stated. “We took without any consideration that she was going to be there perpetually. We weren’t anticipating her retirement however she shall be actually missed by the county.”
NBC News’ protection of the botched loss of life notifications in Hinds County started final fall, with the case of Dexter Wade, who was struck and killed by a police automotive in Jackson and buried in a pauper’s grave with out anybody telling his mom. The articles continued with the instances of Marrio Moore and Hankins. Another 4 households later got here ahead to say that they, too, weren’t instructed a couple of liked one’s loss of life and burial. Two of the households noticed their liked one’s names on a listing of unclaimed our bodies printed by NBC News.