It's unclear when the Hinds County, Mississippi, next-of-kin notification policy went into effect, but it appears not to have been followed in the deaths of Dexter Wade and others.

A Mississippi coroner’s office under fire for burying people in pauper’s graves without their families’ knowledge has released a policy on death notifications that is unsigned and undated, making it impossible to know whether the guidance was in effect while the office was handling the botched cases.

The policy includes provisions that, if they were in effect over the past two years, appear to have been disregarded by Hinds County coroner’s office investigators.

The coroner’s office has not responded to questions about the policy, which the county provided to NBC News this month in response to a public records request.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240119123916/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mississippi-hinds-county-coroner-death-notification-policy-rcna132812