Politics · Australia · 1 day ago

Sister discovers brother was buried in an unmarked communal grave

Sister discovers brother was buried in an unmarked communal grave

Roger Davies, a rough sleeper from Adelaide, was found dead in an abandoned house in Sydney in 2015.

In October that year, the New South Wales government buried him with four other people in a communal grave at Rookwood Cemetery.

His sister, Chantel Dubsky, was not told that he had died or where he was buried.

Police had information linking Davies to his family, and a DNA match confirmed his identity.

New South Wales rules required authorities to make efforts to find relatives before arranging a state-funded burial, and the government had promised to mark unmarked graves.

The Guardian later located Davies’ grave, which had no marker, and found that his family had not been told about it.

Dubsky says the family would have arranged for him to be cremated and brought back to Adelaide.

Sources

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