A former Fayette County deputy corner says she couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling she felt when she walked through the basement of the coroner's office where a body had been left in the cooler for 26 years.

"I think it bothered quite a few people there,” Melissa Neale, who worked in the coroner’s office from 2015-17, told WKYT and

. “They just didn't know how to handle it because, in the end, the body is the responsibility of the coroner in the coroner's office."

The body, which was mostly bones, was that of Helen Stigall who was found in the back of an abandoned school bus in 1989. Lexington police reports showed no foul play.

Stigall had several alcohol intoxication arrests during her day and was probably living in the bus, as police cited food wrappers and clothes scattered on the bus floor.

After the police investigation ended, Stigall's body stayed in the coroner's cooler for two and a half decades. In that time, three Fayette coroners ran the office. Chester Hager and Dennis Penn have both since passed away. Current Coroner Gary Ginn was elected to the office in 2002.

"If you let someone else's mistakes carry over into your term, they become your mistakes. You take ownership of your office,” Neale said.

In the fall of 2015, Neale said another deputy coroner revamped the Indigent Burial Program in Fayette County, and Stigall was buried at that time.

WKYT spoke to Coroner Ginn who said the delayed burial was because getting a DNA sample from skeletal remains wasn't possible until years later. However, Ginn couldn't remember exactly when the sample was taken.

Neale said the body should have been buried right after they had the DNA sample. "Once you have that DNA profile, you don't need a physical body for any other reason,” she said.

The decision to wait is one that Ginn defends.

“We were diligent in our waiting and able to find the family,” Ginn told WKYT. “And they were able to make final disposition of their loved one and know the grave."

Ginn said the county still buried Stigall because her family contact didn't have the mental capacity or financial means to do the burial. Ginn said it's important to give families every chance he can to let them decide the burial.

"I will certainly say it is highly unusual," University of Kentucky Forensic Pathologist Dr. Greg Davis told Combs. "It is inexplicable to me why it would be around for a quarter century like that. That doesn't make sense to me."

However, Dr. Davis said it's not illegal and maybe not unethical as it’s really up to the coroner.

As Neale researched Stigall's case, another deputy let her in on another secret: Stigall wasn't the only body left in the cooler for years.

In March 2009, Lexington police and the coroner were called to Hill Crest Memorial Park Cemetery in response to a fetus being found on the property. About a week after this find, someone found another small infant not far from where the first was found.

The two fetuses stayed in Coroner Ginn's cooler for six years.

Ginn said he kept them, hoping the mother would come forward and claim them. She never did, and the babies were given a county burial in the same cemetery Stigall rests.

"Right now, you can leave bodies in the cooler for six years, 26 years, 13 years, however long you want and no one cares," Neale worried.

David Jones, former executive director of the Kentucky Medical Examiner's office from 1973 to 2002, told

that it typically takes, at most, a month to identify a body and the body be released for burial, even in criminal cases.

“I don't know why you would want to do that," Jones said of keeping a body for 26 years or even six years. "Most coroners wouldn't even think of doing something like that because they need the space."

Ginn said he had space and was respecting all three bodies by keeping them at the coroner's office, waiting for someone they knew to show up.

This is not the first time Ginn has caught attention for not burying bodies in a timely manner. Lexington Herald-Leader reports show In 2015, he retired from the University of Kentucky's body bequeathal program after an audit revealed he had failed to bury bodies that had been donated to UK's Medical School. That audit showed Ginn, who worked as coroner and at UK until 2015, had failed to bury bodies sometimes for three to five years.

Ginn told WKYT’s Miranda Combs by phone that he left UK on good terms, nothing more.

Ginn has also been in hot water lately after WKYT broke the news of an investigation by the Lexington's human resource department concerning sexual harassment claims against Ginn in the coroner's office. The department closed the investigation with little action but did substantiate six of the 13 allegations of inappropriate comments and behaviors by Ginn.

Evergreen Memory Garden Cemetery is where the county has an agreement to do indigent burials. It's where Stigall and the two fetuses now rest.

"It's not out of sight, out of mind," Neale told WKYT. “It's someone's family member. That's why it bothers me so much."

You can watch our investigative report at 6 p.m. on WKYT.