The Office of the Attorney General has finally inked an agreement with a pathologist who would do the autopsies on four bodies in the CNMI, three of which relate to cases that remain unresolved since late last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have just executed the agreement this morning with [the] pathologist and I hope and pray that [he\/she] will be here next week. We\u2019re talking about a pathologist out of Hawaii,\u201d Attorney General Edward Manibusan said in an interview Friday. \u201c[This is] for all the pending cases: the two victims that were shot in San Antonio, one traffic fatality, and the one at the beach side in Marpi.\u201d <\/p>\n
The pathologist will be examining the bodies of Li Na Lim, 43, and Linhua Cui, 53, both found dead inside the Rice Cake Best Food Restaurant in San Antonio in the morning of Dec. 13, 2019; the body of Sergio Apostol, 62, victim of a fatal auto collision in Puerto Rico on Dec. 16, 2019; as well as the decomposing body of a still unidentified man found in a cove of Bird Island in Marpi in Nov. 25, 2019.<\/p>\n
Manibusan said the OAG has been working hard for the last several weeks to get the pathologist to come out on Saipan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been [a] very difficult process. We are dealing with medical examiners who have [a] variety of work somewhere else, and flying out here is not that very easy. So, it\u2019s been very difficult,\u201d the attorney general added. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been in communication with the family, with consular officers concerned in this case, and they\u2019re all happy that we\u2019re doing it. They wanted us to do it today but we can\u2019t. We have some limitations. So, it\u2019s one of our projects that we are really trying to push forward and we hope to get it done soon,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Autopsies on the bodies had been put on hold due to the lack of a medical examiner to conduct post-mortem forensic investigations following the retirement of Dr. Aurelio Espinola, the only forensic pathologist in the Marianas, in January last year, at the age of 77. <\/p>\n
An autopsy determines the cause and manner of a person\u2019s death, with the medical examiner to certify if a person\u2019s death was a result of a criminal act. <\/p>\n
In an interview with the Department of Public Safety in June 2019, DPS spokesperson Adrian Pangelinan said that the department has always been affected by not having a CNMI-based forensic pathologist, even more so without one based in the Marianas. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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