CLEVELAND — White County Coroner Ricky Barrett says it was a simple request for additional funds to speed up certain autopsy cases in the county that has resulted in what he calls unfounded social media bashing of his office.
That online criticism followed a published report about his budget request, made during the March 6 county commission meeting.
Barrett said his request was for $4,775 to help with cases where the state crime laboratory is backlogged on autopsy cases, or where it would take four months to get toxicology.
It was part of the proposed coroner's office budget for next year and only in special cases would the county use the funds to hire a private service to speed up the process, Barrett said.
Barrett, who is not critical of the GBI because of the staffing and space limitation the agency currently is experiencing, said he just wants to do something to help local families.
"In no way am I doing away with the GBI," Barrett said. "They will still be doing our autopsies. The only time that I would go outside would be in a case where they were too busy and it was going to take too long."
The extra funds would only be used for cases involving White County residents.
"I've got a case right now where it's been four months and they [GBI officials], still haven't given me a cause of death and that's hard on these families," Barrett said.
The coroner's office had 74 calls in 2016. Barrett said 21 of those required autopsies, at no cost to the county through the GBI.
