It seems like a miracle that services like the USPS, FedEx, and UPS are able to move hundreds of thousands of packages on a daily basis. But when they make a mistake and lose a package, it feels like the end of the world. Especially if that package was irreplacable.
For the past three years Jeffrey Merriweather Sr. has been trying to get an answer about a lost package, but no one knows where it is. And every time he contacts someone at FedEx he’s directed to someone else.
“I just want someone to be held liable for this,” he told People.
Merriweather Sr. just wants his 32-year-old son’s remains back.
In June 2019, Jeffrey Merriweather Jr.’s body was discovered in southwest Atlanta near an abandoned building. Police believe he had been shot, but still to this day they are unsure.
The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office was unequipped to deal with Merriweather Jr.’s remains, which were mostly skeletal, so they shipped them via FedEx to a lab in Missouri, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.
They were shipped on July 5 and were supposed to arrive four days later, but they never showed up.
It wasn’t until August 19 that his family was notified of the issue.
“Is my son’s murder ever going to be solved,” Kathleen Merriweather, the 32-year-old’s mother said. “Are we ever going to lay his body to rest?”
Initially FedEx was able to track his remains to a facility in Austell, but they were unable to locate them.
That was 2019.
Three years later Merriweather Jr.’s family is still searching for his remains.
According to People, Merriweather Sr. said their family has not received any follow up communication from FedEx nor the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office.
In a statement to People, FedEx expressed their “thoughts and concerns” and directed any other questions to the medical examiner’s office.
“I have his two kids too, and there’s no closure for us. I just don’t understand how certain laws protect people from things like this,” Merriweather Sr. said.
His next step is to make sure some kind of legislation is enacted so his “worst nightmare” doesn’t happen to another family.
“This is a lot of negligence on the part of FedEx, who had the remains at their location, and then all of a sudden, lose it?” he said. “How do you do that with remains? This is like the worst nightmare a person can go through.”
I cannot even imagine the pain this family is going through, and to have FedEx and the medical examiner’s office push the issue off. That is completely unacceptable.
Please share this story if you want closure for the Merriweathers, and if you want to see change so this doesn’t happen to another family.
