MARTINSBURG – A Berkeley County woman claims a body mix-up at the state medical examiner’s office prevented her from potentially being able to prove her son was murdered.
Vanessa Ferrebee filed her complaint December 23 in Berkeley Circuit Court against the West Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, medical examiner Jaqueline Ann Marie Benja, Rosedale Funeral Home and Cemetery and Reliable Transport LLC.
Ferrebee, who ran unsuccessfully for a magistrate position in 2024, filed the complaint herself.
According to the complaint, Ferrebee’s son David Randall Wilson was found unresponsive December 21, 2022, at the home of his ex-girlfriend “under suspicious circumstances.” He was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.
Ferrebee says the circumstances of her son’s death required a medico-legal death investigation be performed by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner because it was an unattended death, he was in apparent good health and died suddenly with no history or other reliable evidence of serious natural disease, he died via a suspected external cause and died under suspicious conditions and in an unnatural manner.
After Wilson was pronounced dead, his body was transported to the OCME by Rosedale Funeral Home for an autopsy.
“Suspicions were raised regarding Wilson’s death because the suspected cause of death was a cardiac arrest related to an intravenous drug overdose, yet Mr. Wilson was known to his family to have been terrified of needles and did not use drugs intravenously,” the complaint states. “Foul play was therefore suspected by the family.”
Upon completion of the autopsy, Wilson’s body and his belongings were to be transported by Reliance Transport to Osborne Funeral Home in Williamsport, Maryland, where his funeral was to be held.
On December 26, 2022, OCME employees signed paperwork indicating they had pulled Wilson’s body for transport, identified him by his toe tag and delivered custody of the body to Richard Jefferson, who signed off on receiving custody. The body then was transported by Reliable Transport to Osborne Funeral Home.
But upon arrival at the funeral home, Ferrebee says it quickly was determined the body was not that of her son. Based on the toe tag and provided photograph, the funeral home said it had received another body with the name Wilson that wasn’t Ferrebee’s son.
The funeral home immediately called the OCME to say it did not receive the correct body. Ferrebee says she then received a call from the funeral home asking if her son had any tattoos or piercings because the body still at the OCME did not. Ferrebee says she confirmed her son had no tattoos or piercings, and she says the funeral home confirmed her son’s body would be sent to them the next day.
The complaint says the actual body of David Wilson would be delivered to Osborne Funeral Home on December 27, 2022, after the mix-up had been made known.
Ferrebee says she received a complete autopsy report from the OCME on October 15, 2023, that said the autopsy had been performed on the wrong body and “likely the same body that had been mistakenly transported.” Also, the OCME erroneously gave authorization for the cremation of David Wilson.
“By the time this discovery was made, Mr. Wilson’s body had already been cremated, and an autopsy could no longer be performed,” the complaint states. “Plaintiff, as well as the rest of Mr. Wilson’s family, had evidence they had hoped to use to prove foul play and investigate her son’s death destroyed.”
The complaint does not make it clear if a funeral service took place, and it does not make it clear when the body of Ferrebee’s son was cremated.
Because of the incident, Ferrebee says she has suffered extraordinary emotional distress and that “she will never be able to obtain justice for her son’s potential murder or even know the true cause of death.”
Ferrebee accuses the defendants of negligence as well as negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, adding that Benja’s actions were willful, malicious and performed recklessly with wanton disregard. She also accuses the OCME of vicarious liability.
She seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interests, court costs, expenses, attorney fees and other relief.
The OCME has been under fire for a backlog of uncompleted autopsy reports. But last month, state lawmakers were told "significant improvement" has been made.
“Through internal workflow initiatives, the OCME has reduced the number of open cases by nearly 500 during this calendar year,” said Matthew Izzo, chief administrator for the state OCME. According to a West Virginia Watch story, the office's average of 240 days to complete a report has been reduced to about 195 days. The office shas five board certified pathologists, which Izzo said is short of the national standards that call for 12 full-time deputy medical examiners and one chief medical examiner.
Berkeley Circuit Court case number 24-C-650