Funeral home finds hole in man’s neck after his death was ruled natural, Ga. cops say

A woman became concerned last weekend because her brother wasn’t answering the phone, so she went to his home northeast of Atlanta, police say.

There, she found Ray Neal, 61, dead Saturday in a bedroom and blood all over his home near Lawrenceville — including on the bed, walls of the bathroom and the shower curtain, Gwinnett County police said in a news release. But officers weren’t sure whether the blood was related to a “medical condition or a crime.”

Neal’s sister, Michelle Smalls, had told officers her brother had “high blood pressure, liver problems and hepatitis C,”according to a police report obtained by the Gwinnett Daily Post. He’d also stopped using crack cocaine but “started abusing alcohol,” Smalls told police, according to the newspaper.

Despite Neal’s poor medical history, officers called homicide investigators about the suspicious death, but detectives didn’t go to the house, the Gwinnett Daily Post reported.

Instead, the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner ruled that Neal died of natural causes, WAGA reported.

Smalls couldn’t believe it, she told the Atlanta TV station.

“I knew it more than what was being said,” Smalls told WAGA. “When I walked in and see that amount of blood it’s something else.”

Still, Neal’s body was released to a funeral home, according to police. When funeral home employees were moving the body, they noticed “suspicious injuries,” police said. Those suspicious injuries included a “hole in Neal’s neck,” WAGA reported.

Two days after his death, the medical examiner performed an autopsy and determined that Neal’s death was actually a homicide after finding stab wounds, police said in the news release.

The medical examiner investigator has been disciplined for the mistake, WSB reported. Police say the error hasn’t hindered the investigation or the search for Neal’s killer, according to WSB.

“We were aware of the situation prior to getting that final classification from the medical examiner’s office,” Cpl. Michele Pihera told the Atlanta TV station.

This story was originally published July 24, 2019 at 11:31 AM with the headline "Funeral home finds hole in man’s neck after his death was ruled natural, Ga. cops say."