BRIGHTON, N.Y. – Protestors gathered outside the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s office on East Henrietta Road Sunday evening.

This comes after News10NBC Chief Investigative Reporter Berkeley Brean reported that a mother found her missing son’s body was sitting inside that office for nine months, unidentified. 

It was a small but powerful crowd out there. The mother, Maureen Marrero, had to wait nine months to get answers that could have come to her in days. She spent nine months thinking her son might be alive, when he was in the ME’s office.

She and a handful of others gathered there on Sunday. Their message was that they want the ME’s office to do better. 

Marrero isn’t the only one whose life and grieving processed was held up by the backlogs. One woman said she waited 18 months for her adult son’s cause of death. They gave the body back quickly, but she says it took them a year and a half to share the paperwork and reports his family needed to get their insurance claim.

As Berkeley reported, there are 20 unidentified people in that office right now. But there is also the question of open cases. 

While Marrero got an identification, she’s waiting on her son’s autopsy report, despite several calls to the ME’s office. 

“I was told to not call here anymore. They don’t know how he died,” she said.  

 News10NBC reporter Hailie Higgins saw county executive Adam Bello at an unrelated event on Saturday. She asked his team for a comment then, and they declined. She asked again on Sunday and got no response.

They did tell Berkeley they are conducting an internal investigation into how bodies are processed there. This was partially spurred by Marrero’s case. Despite that, no one from the county has reached out to her.