Jordan Buie

jbuie@tennessean.com

The Millersville Police chief said three Muslim men who transported a dead fetus in their car and were briefly stopped Wednesday on an unrelated registration issue, had legitimate documentation with them.

Millersville Police Chief David Hindman said the men were transporting the 15-week-old fetus, whose mother had a miscarriage at a Bowling Green, Ky., hospital..

"The men had a coroner's provisional death certificate with them, a burial transit permit," Hindman said. "The mother sadly had a miscarriage and lost her baby. The father, according to the custom of their religion, decided to bury their child theirself."

Hindman said Thursday one of the men attempted to show the deputy the provisional death report, but there was a language barrier between the deputy and the men in the car. The driver was the father of the fetus.

Hindman said after learning of the coroner's report, Millersville police did not seek out the men or the car and decided to let them mourn in peace.

Initially, police were looking for the three men when there was confusion as to whether a crime had been committed.

Hindman said the deputy requested identification from the three men, all of whom had Saudi driver's licenses and passports. Hindman said one man in the car told the deputy all three men were Muslim and were burying one of the men's dead child. They declined to show the deputy the body, saying that, according to their religion, they did not have to show the body.

The chief said the men told the deputy they were transporting the child to a mosque to be buried in Franklin.

"Not wanting to interfere with the Muslim faith and not wanting to cause an incident, (the deputy) decided to go ahead and let the men bury the child," Hindman said Wednesday night.

The chief said that the deputy returned to the police station and reported what happened. The chief then immediately sent out an alert to local law enforcement agencies because the men had already left his jurisdiction.

He said his staff also contacted mosques in the area to verify that a family was coming to bury the child.

"This case is one in a million," the chief said. "We are going to have some additional training for the deputy and there are going to be some new policies instated to make sure supervisors are aware of what is going on on the road when deputies are out patroling."

Reporters Holly Meyer, Stacey Barchenger and Nicole Young contributed to this report.