The skeletal remains of a man found underneath a tarp in 2010 in the woods near Grafton weren't easily identifiable.
The state Medical Examiner's Office had to enlist the help of the Smithsonian Institution to make an identification.
Six years later, confusion still surrounds the remains of David Haddix.
In a lawsuit filed last month, a woman who worked 15 years as an investigator for the state Medical Examiner's Office claims she was fired for refusing to take part in a plot to conceal the office's mishandling of human remains.
Regina D. Reynolds accuses the state Department of Health and Human Resources Bureau for Public Health of firing her when she refused to burn the human remains of a man her lawsuit identifies only as "D.H." Reynolds says she found the remains in a box in the office of the Medical Examiner. They were supposed to have been buried at the West Virginia National Cemetery in Grafton.
Deborah Cochran, of Thornton, said the remains are those of her ex-husband, David Lee Haddix.
Haddix was a Vietnam Army veteran. He died at 61 in 2010 and was identified a year later. When he returned from the war, he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, his ex-wife said, and grappled with addiction and other mental health problems.
"We did this phone conference with the Medical Examiner and that's when they told us they had messed up," Cochran said earlier this month. "They said only part of his remains came up [to the cemetery] and the part they sent off to the Smithsonian were still there."
Cochran said she and her son, also named David Haddix, got a call from the Medical Examiner's Office on Dec. 18, about a week after Reynolds' lawsuit was written about in the Gazette-Mail.
"This woman politely told us, 'We have an arm, a leg and a foot,'" she said, adding that the rest of the remains were still with the state.
"We really - we have to - we have to find out where he's at," Cochran said.
A spokesman for the DHHR said in a statement Friday that, "We understand and regret the unfortunate circumstance that the family has had to endure and we will do everything we can to honor the family's wishes."
"The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) made efforts to contact the family to notify them of this isolated incident," Toby Wagoner, a spokesman for the DHHR wrote. "The OCME was finally able to reach the family and have offered exhumation for the purpose of reunification of the remains without a cost to the family. The family has not yet relayed a decision to our office."
Cochran said her son hired an attorney. Her son did not respond last week to requests for comment.
"I talked to the people at the cemetery and they're upset. If that's not his remains, he can't be buried there," Cochran added.
Keith Barnes, director of the National Cemetery in Grafton, said he's concerned the Haddix family might reach an agreement with the state that doesn't include exhumation.
"Those remains need to be those of a veteran and the right veteran," Barnes said Friday.
Exhumation can be performed only by request of the family of the deceased. Their next of kin, plus all surviving relatives, must give permission, Barnes said. A competent state agency can also order it, he said.
"We didn't know what they brought to us, whether it is partial remains or what," Barnes said. "Someone mentioned there's a possibility that what was provided as remains was the area surrounding where the body was found."
Barnes said the cemetery became aware of a potential problem through a funeral home director after the Gazette-Mail reported on the lawsuit. He couldn't recall Friday the name of the funeral home or its director, but said cemetery or funeral home employees wouldn't have examined the remains.
"The way it works is, we don't open what a licensed funeral director brings us," Barnes said. "The Funeral home, just like us, assumed everything was fine. No one would know anything except at the medical examiner's office."
In her lawsuit, Reynolds states that she fears the remains of someone other than Haddix could be buried in the grave bearing his name. State officials are confident that isn't the case.
"We have fully investigated this matter and have no reason to believe that the skeletal remains buried in the cemetery are anyone other than the decedent," Wagoner wrote.
"We are deeply troubled by the actions of the former employee of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Regina Reynolds violated several DHHR policies including placing her and coworkers at risk by storing human remains at her workstation."
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.