Mishandling of human remains: Local forensic company breaks silence on Lahaina disaster response

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - HNN Investigates has uncovered serious concerns regarding the mishandling of human remains during the initial response to the Lahaina disaster. The owner of a forensic morgue team hired by the Maui Police Department claims that many protocols for the respectful and accurate recovery of victims were not followed.

Greyson Abarra first brought the problem to the attention of HNN Investigates more than a year ago. But it wasn’t until recently when his contract ended with MPD that he was finally able to speak publicly, saying the missteps he witnessed still haunt him today.

On a hillside above Lahainaluna Road sits 102 crosses. Each representing a life. A loved one. Many of whom belong to families Abarra has known for years.

“It really hits home,” he said.

For well over a decade, the owner and morgue operations director at Grey Tech LLC was contracted by the Maui Police Department to provide postmortem care for the island’s departed.

In the hours after flames erased Lahaina, MPD called Abarra into action.

“They said there have been some fatalities that need transport. And that they needed 100 body bags delivered to Lahaina,” he said.

HNN Investigates

When asked what went through his mind, Abarra replied, “First, a little bit a little bit of shock and disbelief. At the same time, it was all the mass casualty training exercises that I attended. It was time to execute it.” He added this was something he was prepared for.

But he says many of the recovery processes and procedures critical to accurately documenting the location of a person’s death and keeping those remains separate — so they’re not lost or confused with other sets of remains — weren’t followed.

Abarra says the facts of what happened in the days after Lahaina burned are extremely difficult to talk about, saying, “It broke me up. It shattered me.”

When asked why he thought the community needed to hear this story, he told HNN Investigates, “to know what happened.”

Records indicate the morning after the disaster, MPD leadership appointed an acting Captain as Lahaina’s daytime incident commander.

In an interview conducted as part of the Attorney General’s Maui Wildfire Investigation, that acting Captain told members of the Fire Safety Research Institute panel what he remembered about recovery efforts that first day.

“When I took over, there were a total of three. By the end of my first day, it was over 50,” said Jeremy Palone-Delatore.

The interviewer asked, “human remains?”

Palone-Delatore responded, “Correct.”

He went on to say, “We are identifying them. And recovering them. So, it kind of just evolved into officers picking up human remains and then transporting them to Lahaina Civic Center. Because Grey Tech, who’s the person that’s responsible for picking up the bodies, it wouldn’t be effective to have them keep coming. One. Get called. One, one, one. So we had to have a mass staging area.”

The interviewer asked Palone-Delatore if he had any experience, training or certifications for large incidents like this one that he brought with him.

Palone-Delatore responded, “As far as mass casualty events or training? No sir.”

Because the fire had touched nearly everything, Abarra says in many cases, people were unrecognizable, camouflaged in the ash and debris.

“That’s why you need qualified personnel who have experience and knows what partially cremated remains look like. To process these scenes in a dignified and efficient manner,” said Abarra.

In addition to police officers, multiple sources told HNN investigates officer recruits, still in training, were assigned to do the work.

Tasks that would typically be reserved for experienced recovery teams like Grey Tech LLC and anthropologists.

When HNN Investigates asked MPD about the use of officer recruits, we didn’t get an answer.

Abarra says at the time of discovery, each victim needed to be assigned a unique ID number, have photographs and GPS coordinates taken where they were found, and their remains placed in a post mortem pouch for transport to the morgue for an autopsy.

He said, “You don’t make up the rules as you go. There are operating field guides. And plans put into place to follow. To make sure everything is done in accordance and respectfully.”

When asked why that’s important, Abarra responded, “That is important for accuracy.”

In the weeks after the fire, at least two families expressed concern about a possible mix-up with their loved ones’ remains.

In a interview conducted in September 2023, Sallyann Gomes-Borden expressed doubt over whether or not the ashes she was given were really her mother.

Donna Gomes, 71, lived on Lahainaluna Road, but her death certificate said her remains were located 10 blocks away on Kuialua Street at an address they say never caught fire.

“How would she have gotten there on her two feet because her car was across the street which burned,” asked Gomes-Borden.

“It’s very important, especially for the families, that were missing their loved ones — that we had GPS coordinates,” said Grey Tech removal technical Christopher Napoleon. “We were working with DMORT (Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams) and the autopsy doctors who needed all of that information and it wasn’t getting done.”

Abarra says he spoke up about the issues right away and provided MPD leadership with a copy of Maui County’s Mass Fatality Operations Plan, as well as a field operations guide that explained step-by-step what needed to be done.

When asked about the response he received, Abarra replied, “I don’t think the problem was understood.”

MPD’s preliminary after action report echoes that confusion, saying, “early on, it was discovered that some body bags contained commingled remains,” while, “In other cases, one individual may have been recovered in more than one body bag.”

The report also stated “a subset of fragmented bone remains could not be linked to only one person and were commingled with multiple non-related individuals.”

HNN Investigates asked Abarra if there was a rush to complete the recovery process.

He didn’t know, saying, “that’s a good question.”

It’s an issue MPD Chief John Pelletier touched on in an interview conducted as part of the Attorney General’s Maui Wildfire Investigation.

He told members of the Fire Safety Research Institute panel, “I think the next week we were concerned that there was going to be a storm coming in.”

Meanwhile, the on-scene incident commander gave investigators another reason for the urgency.

“As human remains started to be located public works and Spectrum and the people that were responsible for trying to get the power back on. They weren’t able to do their work unless the situation of human remains was taken care of,” said Jeremy Palone-Delatore.

HNN Investigates provided MPD with questions for Chief Pelletier, asking him for clarity on reasons for the apparent rush and whether his officers adhered to specific protocols.

Those questions were never answered.

We also gave the Chief the opportunity to sit down with us for an on-camera interview.

A department spokesperson replied, “Please refer to our Preliminary After-Action Report, the Attorney General’s report, and the past official press conferences that provide comprehensive details addressing aspects of the recovery process.”

Abarra is adamant he doesn’t blame the field officers for what happened, saying they were only doing what they’d been ordered to do.

Meanwhile, HNN Investigates inquired about any steps MPD has taken since the Lahaina disaster to provide its officers with mass casualty and or human remains recovery training to prepare them for future disaster.

That question also went unanswered.

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