Christine Dacera’s parents want medico-legal examiner sacked
MANILA, Philippines — The parents of Christine Dacera want a Scene of the Crime Operatives medico-legal officer immediately sacked for his supposed “gross negligence and gross incompetence” in the examination of their daughter’s body following her death.
Jose Nestor and Sharon Dacera filed an administrative complaint against PMaj Michael Nick Sarmiento over his allegedly “irregular and inaccurate” preparation and submission of a medico-legal report and death certificate, CNN Philippines reported.
The complaint particularly hit Sarmiento’s “premature” order to embalm the 23-year-old’s body without the permission of her family and without first doing a medico-legal examination.
“Elementary common sense requires that a medico-legal examination be first conducted on a cadaver before you embalm it," stated the complaint, according to CNN Philippines. “The prior removal of several organs, draining of the deceased's blood and injection of chemicals may destroy any evidence relevant to the examination's supposed findings.”
With the body embalmed before examination and Sarmiento also failing to get blood samples, Dacera’s parents argue that the medical examination report and death certificate he prepared were “irregular, inaccurate and misleading.”
Dacera’s parents questioned the death certificate for concluding that the flight attendant died of natural causes, arguing that her body had already been embalmed and that other injuries, abrasions and bruises on her arms and legs were supposedly ignored.
Dacera was found unconscious in her hotel room’s bathtub on New Year’s Day and was subsequently rushed to the hospital where she was declared dead on arrival.
Facts surrounding the case remain murky, with the police and her family insisting that she was raped and killed, while the men whom she spent her last moments with said this never happened.
READ: What we know so far: Death of flight attendant Christine Dacera
Government prosecutors have sent the case back to the police for further investigation, saying that there is not enough evidence to charge the suspects and keep them in detention.
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