A Brooklyn woman’s long search for her brother ended recently with the tragic discovery that he was buried 21 years ago in a common grave after city officials failed to notify the family about his death.
Jarard Gunnar Aiken died at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital from apparently natural causes on Dec. 15, 1992, at age 44, just eight days after he was admitted for an undisclosed illness, sources said.
Soon afterward, Aiken was buried on Hart Island, a forlorn parcel of land in Long Island Sound accessible only by a ferry maintained by the city’s Department of Correction and partially used as a public burial ground for the indigent and those unclaimed by family members.
“His burial raises the question of how many other unfortunate families are out there like ours, in the same situation of being disconnected to a loved one who happens to be buried in a potter’s field,” sister Penda Aiken, 64, told The Post.
She said her family only received the grim news after paying thousands of dollars on a pair of attorneys.
The dead man was one of seven siblings — he had two brothers and four sisters, all still alive — who grew up in a loving home in Amityville in Suffolk County. Known by his nickname, “Jed,” Aiken graduated from Amityville Memorial HS in 1967 and joined the Air Force, a military commitment from which he washed out early.
“We know he didn’t serve the full time,” Penda Aiken recalled. “Something happened to him there . . . One of my sisters seems to recall that he left after getting into a fight with another soldier and being cut with a bottle on his neck and over his eye.”He was never the same.”
Eventually, Mrs. Aiken said, her brother fell off the grid — but family never filed a missing person’s report because of his past behavior. Still, she and other siblings made periodic calls to the US Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration to learn about his whereabouts, she said.Then, shortly before Christmas, the family turned to Charles-Eric Gordon, an investigative attorney, who promptly discovered the truth.
“In five days, Charlie had information that my brother was dead,” Penda said, her voice breaking.
The family, mulling a costly disinterment so he can be given a burial in a family plot, is trying to assess who was responsible.
“The facts suggest that somebody at the hospital didn’t do their due diligence,” Gordon said.
A spokeswoman for Bronx-Lebanon Hospital did not return a message.
A spokesman for the Department of Correction referred questions to the city’s Medical Examiner’s Office, which denied blame.
“We checked our records and it was not a death that was investigated by us or reported to us,” said ME spokeswoman, Julie Bolcer.