MACON, Ga. — In just three weeks, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Medical Examiner's Office is set to close, and local counties will have to rely on other offices near Atlanta and Savannah for autopsies and toxicology reports.
Coroners, funeral home directors and now politicians are asking the GBI not to close their Medical Examiner's Office in Central Georgia.
The GBI is set to close the office indefinitely beginning October 1. The office will conduct its last autopsies on September 25.
According to a letter sent to coroners and law enforcement, the GBI chose to close it after nine months of searching for a qualified pathologist.
Once the office closes, counties in Central Georgia will have to transport bodies needing autopsies to Pooler near Savannah or headquarters in DeKalb County.
Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones says the office must stay open, claiming it will be "total pandemonium" if it doesn't.
"Funerals will be delayed. Death certificates will be delayed. And investigations will be delayed," Jones said.
Jones says his main concern is how the GBI's decision will impact families.
"Families want to know what their family member died of. That's closure. That's closure. That's what we're looking for, and that's what the family is looking for. This is going to affect families, and I don't like it," Jones said.
With counties being forced to use other medical examiner's offices, funeral homes will have to charge families to transport the bodies.
"The financial burden will be placed on the family, like going back and forth to Atlanta... that's unfair," said DeUndray Bentley, owner of Bentley & Sons Funeral Home.
On Tuesday, just three weeks leading up to the office closing, Jones called on commissioners to put pressure on the GBI. He says his fear is that once the office is closed, it will never reopen.
"Summerville, Augusta, Moultrie, Columbus... Every lab that closed, it never reopened," Jones told the commission.
Macon-Bibb County commissioners are expected to draft up a letter and send it to the director of the GBI in the next week. Jones says he hopes the GBI will reconsider.