PHILADELPHIA — The remains of MOVE bombing victims that Philadelphia cremated and discarded had been in a cardboard box in a storage closet that staff in the medical examiner’s office found while clearing out as they prepared to relocate in 2017, Mayor Jim Kenney said Friday.
“They were cleaning out storage room getting ready to move to their new facility” on Broad Street, Kenney said.
Health Commissioner Thomas Farley resigned Thursday after admitting this week that he authorized Medical Examiner Sam Gulino to dispose of the remains. Gulino was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.
But the city has been slow to explain whose remains they were, why it had them for so long, the process that led to their cremation and where the disposal occurred.
Kenney, speaking to reporters Friday, offered some new details. He said there were two boxes discovered, one with the remains and others with documents. At least one box “had the word MOVE on it,” Kenney said.
The remains were “partial bone fragments” or perhaps teeth, according to the mayor.
Gulino had presented Farley with two options after discovering the boxes: return the remains to family members or dispose of them. They chose the latter.
It remains unclear how many victims’ remains were inside the two boxes, and city officials still have not specified how they were disposed. But the mayor said he will change city policy allowing for the disposal of such remains.
“People treat their pets better than these folks have been treated in death,” Kenney said.
The announcement of Farley’s resignation Thursday came on the 36th anniversary of the bombing, in which the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a bomb on the MOVE homes in West Philadelphia and killed 11 people, including five children. It also came weeks after another scandal involving remains of a MOVE victim; The Penn Museum arranged last month to return bone fragments from one girl killed in the bombing. Those remains had for decades been shuttled between researchers and staff at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University.
The city has retained Dechert LLP to investigate what happened.
“The investigation is started,” Kenney said. “We will find out what everybody said. But the initial information we have is there were two scenarios presented and one was chosen.”
Kenney said that he understands why the Africa family that formed MOVE does not trust the city. He met with the family Thursday, and said that he will honor their request that the family’s own lawyers will be involved in the investigation.
“I thought it was a good dialogue with them,” Kenney said. “I understand their distrust. And I understand there’s no reason to trust me on their part.”
