Woman reunited with fingers 80 years after her death

A woman from Oamaru in New Zealand has been reunited with her fingers more than 80 years after her death. A small ceremony was held at the Oamaru Old Cemetery to reunite Jessie Marguerite Fendell with her fingers on Friday. Fendell fell more than 3 metres down a bank near the Otekaieke Special School where she worked in September 1933. She was found unconscious in the dry creek bed at the bottom of the cliff and died later in hospital. Her Auckland relatives were unconvinced her injuries were solely caused by the fall and her body was exhumed three months later and her fingers were removed from her body.



They were sent to the Wellington Fingerprints Branch where they were analysed by Edmond Dinnie in order to eliminate Fendell's fingerprints from the investigation into her death. No other suspects were identified but in the meantime Fendell's body was reburied. Her fingers were then placed in the care of New Zealand Police Forensics Collection, where they were used to demonstrate to other officers how to deal with post-mortem remains. The Forensics Collection was last used in the 1990s and the remains were placed in the care of the New Zealand Police Museum, where they remained until this year. On Friday, Fendell's great nephew Brian Collinge and Otago Costal Police attended the ceremony where a small wooden box containing her fingers was buried at Fendell's grave.

Collinge said the family were more intrigued and pleased that police were able to use the fingers. "The family were happy that Jessie's fingers were used for a good purpose, and we have been impressed with the way police have handled the process of reuniting Jessie all these years later." In July, the Police Museum began the repatriation of the remains of 37 individuals that had been in the museum's care for many years. The repatriation of Fendell's fingers marked the 33rd set of remains the museum had completed, police said. For the first time in the museum's repatriation project staff worked with the direct relatives of one of the individuals. New Zealand Police Museum director Rowan Carroll said the previous 32 repatriations were for individuals who had been unidentifiable or had no living relatives.



"However, with Jessie, we were able to identify some of her living relatives, but it was difficult. "Only one of Jessie's siblings had had children and, with respecting privacy requirements, we followed a family tree until we could locate one of her living relatives. Once a living relative was identified, we knew that broaching the subject with the family would be difficult, but we needed to make sure we were fully transparent while being both sympathetic and empathetic as well." Eventually Collinge was contacted. "Rowan and the local police have done a great job in doing this right," he said. "Jessie wasn't forgotten within the family, however as time went on, less of the family knew her story. This process has allowed us to bring back some of our family history that some of us were not aware of."