Updated at 5:00 yesterday.
Several museums in Quebec violated the law by displaying parts of murder victims’ remains without authorization until recently, according to Quebec’s outgoing chief coroner.
A collection of skulls, pieces of organs and bone parts assembled by forensic experts up to 1975 recently left the warehouses of the Musée de la Civilization de Québec at the request of Me Pascale Descary. The descendants of the deceased who own them could receive a call in the coming months to find out if they want to recover these remains.
“Human remains are not artifacts to be left on shelves or displayed in public,” Me Descary said in his testimony before an administrative court in May. She has since completed her term of office and has been replaced. “For me it has no place in a museum. » These body parts “could be our father, our grandfather,” she emphasized, stating that she was “uncomfortable” seeing a skull offered to the public.
According to Me Descary, museums were required by law to obtain approval from his office, but this was not the case. The Museum of Civilization, at the center of the affair, admits it “should not have included her in its exhibitions.”
These human remains – all part of the Laboratory of Forensic Science and Forensic Medicine’s collection – have been shown to the public several times in recent years. The Musée de la Civilization (for at least three exhibitions), the Montreal Science Center and the Musée québécois de populaire culture de Trois-Rivières (Musée POP) have all exhibited controversial pieces. In 2018-2019, tattooed scraps of skin from a woman murdered 90 years earlier and sawn-off bones from a teenager who was killed at the same time were still on display in the Museum of Civilization.
PHOTO DANIEL JALBERT, DISTRIBUTED BY THE POP MUSEUM
Fragments of skin from Mildred Brown, murdered in Montreal in 1929
The institution declined La Presse’s interview request. “The Museum of Civilization acted in good faith and followed the practice agreed with the laboratory,” public relations officer Anne-Sophie Desmeules said by email. “Today and in the future it is obvious that situations like this cannot happen again. »
A macabre collection
The Judicial Sciences and Forensic Medicine Laboratory is the department of the Ministry of Public Security that performs all autopsies in Quebec. Over the decades, forensic scientists have wanted to preserve samples of the remains, often as curiosities. The founder of the laboratory, Wilfrid Derome (1877-1931), may have made a significant contribution to the creation of this collection. In 1997, the laboratory entrusted all these strange memories to the Musée de la Civilization.
“Sensibilities about all of this have changed dramatically,” noted Dany Brown, the institution’s collections director, in a recent statement.
We recognize today that it was a mistake that we should not have presented them.
Dany Brown, collection director at the Musée de la Civilization
According to her statement, Me Descary, who was appointed chief coroner in 2018, only learned of the existence of this collection in 2020-2021. However, even though they were in the possession of the Forensic Science and Forensic Medicine Laboratory, according to their interpretation, they were still under the authority of the medical examiner.
In 2022 the collection returned to Montreal. According to Pascale Descary it is being dissolved. “We want to communicate with the relatives so that at some point we will no longer have these collections and return them to the families,” she said. Unclaimed or unidentifiable human remains will be disposed of with respect.
The new chief medical examiner, Reno Bernier, declined to comment on the issue.
Uncomfortable questions
This whole story comes to light because a researcher at the University of Toronto is interested in these pieces. After seeing scraps of tattooed skin in a display case at the Museum of Civilization in 2018, Jamie Jelinski tried to get more information about these pieces. The institution’s reaction? A few months later they disappeared.
Mr. Jelinski then sent a request to the museum to obtain archival photos of the windows of all exhibitions in which human remains were used.
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY THE MUSEUM OF CIVILIZATION
The censored photos that the Musée de la Civilization wanted to send to Jamie Jelinski. Each black rectangle corresponds to human remains or a photograph showing human remains.
The Musée de la Civilization rejected his request, holding that it was prohibited from disseminating images of human remains under the supervision of a coroner, even if they had been exhibited.
It’s very hypocritical. These items were available to thousands of people.
Jamie Jelinski, in a telephone interview
In early 2023, the Quebec Commission for Access to Information therefore held two hearings to resolve the debate. Me Descary sided with the Musée de la Civilization and called on the administrative judge Marc-Aurèle Racicot not to authorize the distribution of the images. “It’s not because a poacher hunted on his land without a license for 20 years that suddenly poaching is OK,” she said, seeking to emphasize that the museum’s guilt should not set a precedent.
Judge Racicot agreed with him. “Human remains are not artifacts that may be exhibited, and the coroner’s office has never consented to the release of these human remains,” he ruled in a decision released last week. “Although these remains may have been displayed or photographed in the past, this does not make them public. » It relied in particular on the rights granted in the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as the Coroners Act.
But for law professor Marie-Ève Lacroix, who is specifically interested in the legal status of the human body at the time of death, this interpretation raises doubts.
When you die, “you are no longer a legal person, which means you can no longer have any rights.” “We cannot claim a right to privacy or to the image of the corpse, that would be completely heretical,” the professor argued in one Telephone interview. “According to my expertise, [la décision du juge Racicot] is under criticism. »