Cape County Coroner Jordan reveals civil attorney won’t take case in answer filed to judge

Cape Girardeau County Coroner Wavis Jordan.

Southeast Missourian file

Judge Jerel Poor denied a request to seal an answer made by Wavis Jordan regarding his ability to obtain a civil attorney, with Jordan stating, “a civil attorney won’t take my case” and requesting his answer be sealed from “news media”.

Jordan was successfully granted an extension of time to hire an attorney or file an answer to a petition by Friday, July 12. His answer was filed Thursday, July 11, with Poor denying Jordan’s request to seal his filing from news media outlets.

In Jordan’s filing, he said he would “do his best to answer” for the case charged against him. Jordan defended himself against the two cases, stating that “I am going by what was presented to me from the AG Office.”

Per the petition filed by the Missouri attorney general, the AG alleges these failures Jordan committed as coroner,

q stole property and attempted to steal property he was obligated to safeguard;

q knowingly entered the wrong cause of death for three people;

q failed to properly investigate the causes and manners of death of several individuals;

q failed to take the necessary steps to be prepared to investigate causes and manners of death;

q failed to obtain blood from two individuals who died in separate motor vehicle accidents;

q solicited family members regarding funeral arrangements of a deceased person.

Regarding one of the civil case allegations, Jordan stated in the filing that he had been falsely accused of taking a body to the wrong funeral home. He stated that he had never even taken the body from the home to the funeral home.

Jordan stated the family decides on a funeral home while the coroner is on the scene and the funeral home is called while the family is present.

“From my understanding, it’s not the coroner or the coroner’s office job to take a body to the funeral home,” Jordan stated. “Once the coroner or the coroner’s office is done with their investigation at a home of the deceased, they are supposed to turn the body back to the family and the family supposed to call the funeral home of their choice.”

He stated he would also like to see evidence of this happening.

Jordan stated he believes the other civil allegation is that a “family didn’t like what (he) put on his wife (sic) death certificates.” He stated the charges weren’t clear to him from the AG’s office, but he gave his side of the story.

Jordan stated he received a call from the husband that his wife had passed away from a fall and wanted him to rule it as an accident so the man could get an insurance claim. He stated the woman was on oxygen and did have “some health problem.”

Jordan said he also discovered through the conversation with the husband that he wasn’t home when she died.

“I told him I felt there was not enough evidence to say it was an ACCIDENT. I also explain (sic) that to his attorney,” Jordan stated.

He stated he ruled the death the way he did off of the records and what the hospital stated in its records.

None of the deaths in the cases included information detailing a death from a fall.

Those were the only cases Jordan defended himself against in the filing. He asked the judge to give him a call if he “missed something.”