“Human remains are not artifacts”

The Coroner’s Office believes that skulls, shreds of skin and sawn bones have no place in museums

Several Quebec museums violated the law by displaying until recently pieces of remains of murder victims without authorization, according to Quebec’s outgoing chief coroner.

A collection including skulls, pieces of organs and parts of bones accumulated by forensic doctors until 1975 recently left the warehouses of the Musée de la civilization de Québec, at the request of M^e Pascale Descary. The descendants of the deceased to whom they belong could receive a call in the coming months to find out if they want to recover these remains.

“Human remains are not artifacts to be left on shelves or publicly displayed,” said Ms.^e Descary, in May, in testimony before an administrative tribunal. She has since completed her term and been replaced. “It has no place, for me, in a museum. » These body parts “could be our dad, our grandpa”, she underlined, claiming to feel “uncomfortable” at seeing a skull being offered to the public eye.

According to M^e Descary, museums had a legal obligation to obtain authorization from his office, which was not done. The Museum of Civilization, at the center of the affair, admits that it “should not” have included them in its exhibitions.

These human remains – all of which are part of the collection of the Forensic Science and Forensic Medicine Laboratory – have been shown to the public on multiple occasions in recent years. The Musée de la civilization (for at least three exhibitions), the Montreal Science Center and the Musée québécois de culture populaire de Trois-Rivières (Musée POP) have all placed controversial pieces under display. As recently as 2018-2019, the Museum of Civilization exhibited shreds of tattooed skin from a woman murdered 90 years earlier, as well as sawn bones from a teenager killed at the same time.

The institution refused the interview request of The Press. “The Museum of Civilization acted in good faith and followed the practice that had been agreed with the Laboratory,” said public relations officer Anne-Sophie Desmeules by email. “Today and in the future, it is obvious that such situations could not happen again. »

A macabre collection

The Laboratory of Judicial Sciences and Forensic Medicine is the department of the Ministry of Public Security which carries out all autopsies in Quebec. Over the decades, forensic scientists have wanted to preserve samples of the remains, often as objects of curiosity. The founder of the laboratory, Wilfrid Derome (1877-1931) would have largely contributed to amassing this collection. In 1997, the Laboratory entrusted all of these strange memories to the Musée de la civilization.

“The sensitivity to all this has changed a lot,” noted Dany Brown, director of collections at the institution, in a recent testimony.

Appointed chief coroner in 2018, M^e Descary only learned of the existence of this collection in 2020-2021, according to his testimony. However, even if they were in the possession of the Forensic Science and Forensic Medicine Laboratory, they were still under the authority of the Coroner’s Office, according to its interpretation.

In 2022, the collection returned to Montreal. It will be dissolved, according to Pascale Descary. “We want to communicate with relatives to eventually no longer possess these collections and return them to families,” she said. Unclaimed or unidentifiable human remains will be disposed of with respect.

The new chief coroner, Reno Bernier, did not want to comment on the subject.

Uncomfortable questions

This whole story is surfacing due to interest in these pieces from a researcher affiliated with the University of Toronto. After seeing shreds of tattooed skin in a display case at the Museum of Civilization in 2018, Jamie Jelinski tried to get more information about these pieces. The reaction of the institution? A few months later, they had disappeared.

Mr. Jelinski then sent the Museum a request to obtain archival photos of the windows of all the exhibitions where human remains had been used.

The Musée de la civilization refused his request, henceforth considering that it was prohibited from disseminating any image of human remains under the authority of a coroner, even if it had exhibited them.

Earlier in 2023, the Quebec Commission for Access to Information therefore held two hearings to resolve the debate. M^e Descary sided with the Musée de la civilization, calling on administrative judge Marc-Aurèle Racicot not to authorize the dissemination of the images. “It is not because a poacher has hunted for 20 years on his land without a license that it suddenly becomes okay to poach,” she said, wanting to emphasize that the Museum’s fault should not be create a precedent.

Judge Racicot agreed with him. “Human remains are not artifacts to be displayed and the Coroner’s Office has never consented to the release of these human remains,” he ruled, in a decision made public last week. “Although these remains may have been exhibited or photographed in the past, this does not make them public. » It was based in particular on the rights granted by the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as on the Coroners Act.

But for law professor Marie-Ève ​​Lacroix, who is specifically interested in the legal status of the human body at the time of death, this interpretation raises doubts.

When you die, “you are no longer a legal person, which means that you can no longer hold rights. We cannot claim a right to privacy or to the image of the corpse, that would be completely heretical,” argued the professor in a telephone interview. “According to my expertise, [la décision du juge Racicot] is subject to criticism. »