Legal fight overson buried in pauper's grave

A MOTHER from Yorkshire has launched legal proceedings against the police and other public authorities in New York after her son was buried as an unknown man following his disappearance in the city.

Richard Massey, from Edenthorpe, Doncaster, moved to New York in 2002 to work as a computer programmer, but went missing just before Christmas that year – prompting his family to travel to America to look for him.

The 27-year-old’s relatives said they reported him missing to New York police shortly after he vanished, provided detectives with identifying information, including dental records, and even held a press conference.

But after Mr Massey’s body was found in the city’s Hudson River in March 2003, the authorities buried him as a so-called “John Doe” in a city cemetery, where he remained unidentified for more than five years.

His true identity was finally uncovered after an American lawyer, Susanne Gennusa, was instructed by the desperate Doncaster family to contact the New York medical examiners’ office one final time.

Yesterday, lawyers in New York confirmed that Mr Massey’s mother Margaret had, with their assistance, filed a lawsuit in the state Supreme Court in Manhattan, against the city authorities.

James Modzelewski, who is acting for the family, said they were seeking unspecified damages from the the city, police and medical examiners for negligence and depriving Mrs Massey of the right to bury her son.

Mr Modzelewski said Mr Massey had been working in an investment firm in New York when he vanished after being released from a hospital on December 19, 2002, after suffering from “some emotional problems”.

The lawyer said the family had talked to his city-based friends and tried to trace him through his use of credit cards but were unsuccessful and struggled to get the authorities to help.

They finally made a public plea for information at a July 2003 press conference, but were unaware that his body had already been pulled from the river, undergone a post-mortem examination and been buried in a pauper’s grave.

According to Mr Modzelewski, the information Mr Massey’s family gave to detectives was not matched to his grave until 2008, when the family made inquiries as part of the process of obtaining a death certificate.

Once the mix-up came to light, the body was exhumed and DNA tests confirmed that it was Mr Massey. His remains were then brought back to Yorkshire and buried in a Doncaster cemetery.

Mr Massey’s sister Katie said immediately after the funeral that police had initially suggested her brother might simply have gone on holiday without letting the family know.

She said the family had “nagged and nagged” and added: “My mother’s worst nightmare was that he would end up unidentified and buried on his own. We were told that would not happen, but it did.

“The attitude was that he was 27 years old, had no history of mental illness and that he was not vulnerable. They said there were no suspicious circumstances like blood in his apartment and they were really not interested. It was a very difficult time for us and they just didn’t seem bothered.”

Mr Massey was a gifted computer programmer, who had been interested in computers since he was a boy. He had already spent time working in Hong Kong and France before securing a secondment in New York.

His mother even spent time walking the streets of neighbourhoods frequented by down and outs in the hope of finding her son, not knowing that he had already been buried.

New York’s Law Department spokeswoman Connie Pankratz said Mr Massey’s death was “tragic” and added: “We will carefully review the matter.”

Neither Miss Massey nor her parents could be contacted for comment yesterday.