A state agency is being sued by a former investigator who says she was fired for being a whistleblower.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that former state Medical Examiner’s Office investigator Regina D. Reynolds filed the lawsuit last week. The lawsuit alleges that the Department of Health and Human Resources Bureau for Public Health fired Reynolds after she refused to burn human remains to conceal they had been mishandled.
DHHR spokesman Toby Wagoner says the office doesn’t comment on pending litigation or personnel issues.
Reynolds’ lawsuit says she found a man’s skeletal remains in a DHHR evidence room last year. Records indicated the remains had been buried.
The lawsuit says Raines contacted the Office of the Inspector General after being ordered to burn the remains. She later was fired.