ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Think about the headline you just read. A mother was actively looking for her missing son for a year and she had no idea his body was lying in the Medical Examiner’s office unidentified.

That’s because it took the Medical Examiner’s (ME) Office nine months to test and confirm his DNA.

There is now an internal county review because of what happened, and because of the questions News10NBC started asking this week.

“Well, I’m very sad that Sean is gone. I’m very grateful to have his body back,” Sean’s mother Maureen Harrison said. “And I’m very angry with the way that Sean’s situation has been handled.”

Sean Marrero was a father of three and disappeared on January 30, 2023. His body was pulled from the Genesee River in April of 2023. But in October of 2023, News10NBC’s Berkeley Brean was with his mother and step-father as they actively searched for him.

“This has devastated our family,” Harrison said on Oct. 17, 2023. “We are so desperate for information on what happened to Sean.”

When she said that, Marrero’s body was laying in the ME’s office. Harrison says her family called the ME multiple times, including in April after the body was pulled from the river.

“The ME told me, ‘Oh we have no John Doe that could possibly be your son,’ when they had my son since April 16. And between April 16 and January 16, it’s torture that we went through,” she said. “His children. Myself. You and I met before. We hung posters. We did podcasts. Sean was there the whole time.”

“And we were told the same thing – it’s not possible it’s him. There’s no way it’s him,” said Jenny M, leader of WNY Missing and Unidentified Persons Network.
 
Marrero’s name was at the top of their list until he was identified on January 16. There are 20 unidentified people in the ME’s office right now.

Berkeley Brean, News10NBC: “Do you think those unidentified people are still considered missing people?”
Jenny M, WNY Missing and Unidentified Persons Network: “I firmly believe that one or more of them could potentially be Jeremy Perez, Jeremy Summers, Nick Alverez, Tommy Williams, Joel Stephany. Those are some of the men missing in Rochester right now. Some of them for four or more years.”
Brean: “Why did it take nine months to identify Sean Marrero?”
Gary Walker, Monroe County spokesman: “Let me give you some context first Berkeley.”
 
Walker is the Monroe County spokesman. The law says he can’t talk about specific cases, but said because of Marrero’s case, the county executive directed a review of how bodies and tests are prioritized.
Right now, if a body is connected to a crime, that’s the priority. 

Brean: “Is that going to change now?”
Gary Walker: “Well, what we’re going to do is take the county medical director, Dr. Mendoza is doing a full review of that, to say, ‘Yes, we understand that crime is and criminal investigations are a priority, but simply we got to do better than the length of time it took in the individual case you’re talking about.'”

Harrison believes her son was killed and shared some of his final text messages where he feared for his life. But Marrero is not listed as a 2023 homicide victim by the RPD. Marrero’s memorial service was Sunday.
 
“I am so grateful to have him back, and I hope that the other families whose children, whose fathers, whose sons are missing that somebody does their job and looks at the Medical Examiner’s Office in the county and checks to see if they’re there,” she said. “That’s what I want to happen.”

Monroe County says the ME’s office got 600 new DNA cases last year, and the county crime lab tested 1,300 samples.