NEW YORK (AP) — A British woman says New York City officials didn’t identify her missing son until more than five years after burying him as an unknown man despite his family’s efforts to find him.
Margaret Massey sued the city in a Manhattan court on Monday. She’s seeking unspecified damages.
City lawyers call Richard Massey’s death tragic but say they’re still reviewing the John Doe case.
Massey was 27 and was working as a computer programmer in New York when he disappeared in December 2002. The lawsuit says his family soon reported him missing and gave police identifying information.
But the mother’s lawyer says Massey’s body was buried as unidentified after being pulled from the Hudson River in March 2003. The lawyer says the identification wasn’t made until October 2008, after another family attorney began investigating.