Judge set to rule on mummified bodies

A JUDGE is to decide the fate of the mummified remains of an elderly couple which have lain for 15 years in a mortuary.

Eugenios and Hilda Marcel’s bodies were discovered by officers in the basement of a former fishmonger’s shop in Polwarth, Edinburgh, in 2002.

Mrs Marcel had died of lung failure in 1987 and her husband died seven years later, aged 94, of prostate cancer.

Although the deaths were officially recorded and certified, the bodies were put in the basement rather than being buried. The remains were embalmed and a relative regularly visited them at the premises. The couple’s bodies were discovered by police during an investigation into alleged fraud at a funeral home in West Lothian.

It was claimed at the time that staff at an undertaker in Broxburn had been paid to preserve and look after the bodies.

Four employees were sacked but none of those allegedly involved was charged or prosecuted for any offence.

Since their discovery the remains have lain in Edinburgh City Council’s mortuary in Cowgate, with officials unable to find them a more suitable resting place without the consent of the family. The local authority says the couple’s sons, Nigel and Melvyn, have not given it instructions on what should be done with the bodies.

A family member wants the local authority to continue keeping the remains until a private mausoleum has been built.

Now lawyers acting for the council have gone to the Court of Session in an attempt to gain a legal order which would allow them to organise a burial or cremation for Mr and Mrs Marcel.

The couple had come to public attention in 1984 when Mrs Marcel lost a claim for damages against the Royal Bank of Scotland at a Scottish court. The financial institution had mistakenly addressed a bank statement, intended for her, to her husband revealing that she had borrowed £6,000 for a round-the-world trip with her younger son Melvyn.

Mr Marcel, who ran the Roxburghe Hotel in Dunbar, East Lothian, was said to be so upset at the discovery that he ‘chased guests out of the hotel’.

Nigel Marcel told the court that relationships had broken down several years earlier and the running of the business had developed into a farce.

After a short hearing yesterday, Lord Mulholland said he would issue his decision next month.