State Worker Placed On Leave After Showing Husband Adam Lanza's Body

[DonViejo]

Incident 2 Days After Shootings Leads To Complaint, Investigation, Sources Say

By JON LENDER and DAVE ALTIMARI, [e-mail]
The Hartford Courant
9:10 p.m. EST, January 2, 2013

An administrative worker at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has been placed on a paid leave pending an investigation of a Dec. 16 incident in which she allowed her husband, who is not an authorized employee of the office, to view the body of mass killer Adam Lanza two days after the Newtown school massacre.

Sources said that Jean Henry, a processing technician at the Farmington facility, and her husband entered the refrigerated room in which bodies are kept pending autopsies on the morning of the day when the post-mortem would later be performed on Lanza.

They went to the gurney where Lanza lay, then Henry unzipped the bag so her husband could look at him for a moment, and she closed the bag and they left the room, sources familiar with situation told The Courant Wednesday.

Lanza shot 20 first-graders and six adult staff members to death on Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School, then shot himself in the head as police arrived. Earlier, he had killed his mother at their Newtown home.

-snip-

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/newtown-sandy-hook-school-shooting/hc-lanza-body-newtown-shootings-0103-20130102,0,6875638.story

[NYC_SKP]

1. Paid leave. Nice gig, if you can get it. nt

[madaboutharry]

2. Mrs. Henry is an idiot.

I would bet that they were itching to demote her in her previous position.

[rivegauche]

3. I really don't understand people

why the hell would anyone want to see that? She should be fired.

[MrSlayer]

4. I'm going to take the other side and say "so what?"

A guy viewed a corpse for five seconds, who cares? Why does it matter that it was the child killing asshole? Suppose it was a stew bum that got hit by a bus, would this even be a story?

It's not like he was taking pictures or posing with the body or fucking it or anything. He looked at it.

So what?

[Hestia]

5. Good point - how many saw JFK and Jack Ruby and Oswald?

Hundreds I'll bet, it just wasn't in the days of the internet and security cameras to keep a record.

[freshwest]

6. OTOH, what if he'd asked to see one of the children? Morbid curiousity doesn't have to be sated.

Just because Lanza was a killer, it's the principle of the thing and the boundaries that were crossed. It's bad enough to end up in a public morgue.

AFAIK, the children were there as well. She was irresponsible and gave him a privilege no matter who was viewed and it was a breach of public trust.

I don't think she deserves firing, but should be reprimanded. It may be that it's a small town and protocol may not be as strictly observed as in large cities.

[madaboutharry]

7. The man's body was evidence in a criminal investigation.

Since when is it ok to allow unauthorized people access to evidence?

[yurbud]

8. apart from any emotional reactions, that deserves the final word.

[HooptieWagon]

9. Good point.

And we don't know that he didn't take photos...

[MrSlayer]

10. A quick peek at the body isn't disrupting evidence.

And really, it's quite obvious that he was the person responsible. It's not like they were going to put anyone on trial. I don't see it as a big deal.

[Ash_F]

13. It's not the position of an random office clerk to make that judgment

Still she didn't get unpaid leave, so it's not that big of a punishment...yet.

[struggle4progress]

14. +

[cosmicamerican]

11. Bet he took a picture

Think of how much a Murdoch tabloid would pay.

[Jefferson23]

12. Voyeurism taken to a new low imo.

If she gets to keep her position, I'll be surprised.