A Florida family is seeking explanations after their loved one’s body was found decomposing in a nursing home closet more than a week after they went missing.
Erin Etienne, 71, was found dead Monday morning at North Dade Nursing and Rehabilitation Facility in North Miami, her niece, Kimberly Etienne, said Tuesday.
She said the nursing home patient had suffered a brain aneurysm and had been receiving treatment at the facility since early August.
North Miami police confirmed a body was found at the center but did not release a name. Maj. Kessler Brooks said Tuesday that the cause and circumstances of death were pending the medical examiner’s findings.
The family’s nightmare began on Aug. 22, when Kimberly said they were contacted by someone who they believed worked at the facility and told them Erin had gone missing.
“We got a message from someone’s personal phone saying they couldn’t find him, so we called the nursing home and spoke to a nurse who said he’d discharged himself,” she said. “When they said he’d been discharged, we begged for paperwork to confirm his signature but they refused, so we called the police and filed an official missing person’s report.”
In a Facebook post on August 23, police asked the public to help search for Erin.
Kimberly said the facility did not allow the family to search for their missing relatives inside the facility, and that they had been “driving all over the city” searching for them for more than a week.
On Monday, Erin’s body was reportedly found at a nursing home, wearing the same clothes she was in when she disappeared and a bracelet with her name engraved on it.
“The detectives came and said he was found in a closet, so decomposed that he couldn’t be identified,” Kimberly said.
A person who answered the phone at the facility on Tuesday hung up without answering questions. NBC News also attempted to contact the facility through its website but did not immediately receive a response.
Chef Erin is remembered by his niece as a “loving, selfless” family man.
“There’s no way he could come in and not light up the room with his jokes and laughter and humor,” she said. “He was just an honest person, and we didn’t want to send him off like that.”
He was expected to stay at the facility for 12 weeks undergoing rehabilitation and physical therapy, she said.
Kimberly said Erin had hoped to be buried in Haiti, where her mother is buried, but the family isn’t sure if that’s still possible because of the condition of the body.
“It’s like a movie, a bad horror movie,” she said. “We have to ask for justice because we can’t even give him a proper burial.”
