{"id":117389,"date":"2021-09-11T11:18:08","date_gmt":"2021-09-11T15:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=117389"},"modified":"2021-09-11T11:18:08","modified_gmt":"2021-09-11T15:18:08","slug":"missing-vets-body-was-found-in-stairwell-of-va-facility-a-month-after-he-disappeared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=117389","title":{"rendered":"Missing vet\u2019s body was found in stairwell of VA facility a month after he disappeared"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The NY Post is reporting<\/a>;<\/p>\n

The decaying body of an Army veteran went undiscovered at a Massachusetts facility for a month \u2014 because no one bothered to look in an emergency exit stairwell, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.<\/p>\n

A 45-page report released Thursday detailed the disappearance and death of Timothy White, 62, whose \u201csignificantly decayed\u201d corpse was discovered in June 2020 in a stairwell at the Bedford Veterans Quarters in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

White, who had recently been homeless, started living at the privately operated, VA-owned building in January 2020.<\/p>\n

He was reported missing from his single-occupancy room on May 13 and lived just down the hall from where his body was found nearly a month later on June 12 \u2014 having never left the building, according to the report by the VA\u2019s Office of Inspector General.<\/p>\n

Another resident at the facility ultimately found White\u2019s body and he was wearing the same clothes he had on when he was last seen: a Boston Red Sox jersey, jeans and a baseball cap.<\/p>\n

White, who was not known to leave the Bedford facility without explanation, had no cellphone or car on the campus. Investigators found that the facility\u2019s staff, Bedford police, as well as VA authorities \u201cnever searched\u201d the exit stairwell where the vet\u2019s body was ultimately discovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe OIG found that Mr. White\u2019s disappearance did not receive the attention it deserved from VA, an agency that is required by federal law to provide for the protection of all persons on its property,\u201d the report concluded.<\/p>\n

The facility failed to properly respond to White\u2019s disappearance by not ordering a significant search, including no routine patrols of any part of the building where he was later found.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn officer told OIG investigators that had VA police been patrolling Building 5 at the time of his disappearance, he believed they would have \u2018absolutely\u2019 seen Mr. White, and he would have been located significantly sooner,\u201d the report found.<\/p>\n

Former VA police chief Shawn Kelley also waited nearly two weeks to respond to a Bedford police request to search for White using police dogs \u2014 an effort that never materialized since the vet was a resident at the facility and not an at-risk patient, the Boston Globe reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoor decision-making, misinformation, and lack of oversight also prevented anyone at VA from encountering Mr. White during the month after he was reported missing through routine patrols or cleaning of the emergency exit stairwell in which his body was found,\u201d the OIG report concluded.<\/p>\n

Kelley had ordered VA police officers to stop their daily patrols of the building in February 2020, some three months before White disappeared. The VA police chief later resigned as the OIG probe was being conducted, citing health issues, a person close to the matter told the Boston Globe.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors also looked into White\u2019s death, but did not recommend any criminal charges in the case. A medical examiner was unable to determine exactly how he died, the newspaper reported.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Post has a photo that shows the layout of the building, where White’s body was found, and where White’s room was. He was literally feet away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The NY Post is reporting; The decaying body of an Army veteran went undiscovered at a … Missing vet\u2019s body was found in stairwell of VA facility a month after he disappeared<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,126,143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-disposable-warriors","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117390,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117389\/revisions\/117390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}