By Rupert Howell
Well this is a new one—in Panola County anyway.
Panola County Coroner Gracie Grant-Gulledge asked supervisors to tell her to proceed with the process of getting a car and belongings of a man who died in the local hospital in December declared abandoned.
According to Grant, Raymond Farrell was traveling from Utah to Florida and wound up in the local hospital where he died December 15.
The Mississippi Department of Human Services was unable to locate family and when two friends were eventually located by phone and learned of his death, they now refuse to answer or return phone calls.
Gulledge eventually contacted the Mississippi Attorney General’s office who spelled out the process.
Attorney for the supervisors Bill McKenzie informed the board the Attorney General’s reply had basically laid out a seven-month process to get rid of a 13-year-old vehicle.
He explained that legal notices must be run in the newspaper and a waiting period of 120 days is also in the process.
“It’s the first body to be cremated for Panola County in 13 years,” Gulledge stated when asked the whereabouts of the remains, “They are at the funeral home.”
So for now, the $33 in cash, a 2003 Nissan, papers and the car’s contents are at the Panola County Jail awaiting a long legal trail to lead it to freedom.