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The lawsuit comes after a WWL Louisiana investigation with The Times-Picayune this summer, which exposed long delays in identifying bodies at the coroner’s office.
When Justin Smith went missing on June 15, his father filed missing person reports, hired a private investigator and frantically scoured his son's usual hangouts in the French Quarter, where
Orleans Coroner struggles to properly ID, store dead bodies. Man died on June 18, but his father didn't learn that until July 12.
Benjamin Pfantz’s last name was misspelled in Orleans Parish Coroner's Office case management software, records show, and staffers didn’t pull up his file during his family's calls over the next eight months.