Judges orders burial of mummified couple after 14 years

A JUDGE has told a local authority to bury the embalmed remains of a couple who have spent almost 15 years in a mortuary.

Lord Mulholland ruled yesterday that Edinburgh City Council has the legal authority to arrange a burial for the bodies of Eugenios and Hilda Marcel, whose remains were found in a former fishmonger’s shop in 2002.

Lawyers acting for the council told the Court of Session they had not received instructions from relatives and had a statutory duty to dispose of the bodies.

One son, Melvyn Marcel, wanted to build a fridge in his home as a temporary measure until he could take the bodies to be buried in the West Bank, in Gaza.

But Lord Mulholland ruled the council had the legal right to arrange the burial after family members failed to attend court on a number of occasions.

The couple have been kept at Edinburgh City Council’s Cowgate mortuary since police found them in the basement of a former fishmonger’s 14 years ago.

Mrs Marcel had died in 1987 from lung cancer, while her husband passed away from prostate cancer, aged 91, in 1994. Their bodies were embalmed and a relative regularly visited them at the premises.

Police discovered the bodies during an investigation into alleged fraud at a funeral home in West Lothian which resulted in no charges or prosecution.

Lord Mulholland said details of Mr Marcel’s plans for his parents were contained in legal documents, but he viewed them only as ‘a vague statement of intent’.

He wrote in his judgment: ‘It should be noted that the bodies of the defender’s parents have been in the city mortuary for many years, no doubt at some cost to the City of Edinburgh at a time when the public purse is under significant constraint.’

He said Mr Marcel had been given ample time to make his own arrangements for the burial of his parents.

He added: ‘I should add that it would be helpful, although I cannot compel it, if (the council), in carrying out their statutory duty, would give due consideration to any realistic requests made by the defender and his family as to the arrangements for disposal of his parents’s bodies.’