A family in Florida is demanding answers after they said their loved one's decomposed body was found in the closet of a nursing home more than a week after he was reported missing.
Elin Etienne, 71, was found dead Monday morning at North Dade Nursing and Rehab in North Miami, his niece Kimberly Etienne said Tuesday.
The nursing home patient had been receiving care at the facility since early August after suffering a brain aneurysm, she said.
North Miami police confirmed that a person was found dead at the center but did not release a name. A cause and manner of death are pending the medical examiner's findings, Maj. Kessler Brooks said Tuesday.
The family's nightmare began on Aug. 22 when Kimberly said someone they believe works at the facility reached out and said Elin was missing.
"We received a message from someone's personal phone that said we can't find him. So we called the nursing home and spoke to a nurse and they said he checked himself out," she said. "When they said he checked himself out, we pleaded with them for the form to verify his signature. They refused. So we called the police to do a formal missing persons report."
In an Aug. 23 Facebook post, police asked for the public's assistance in finding Elin.
According to Kimberly, the facility refused to let the family search the premises for their missing relative. She said family members "were driving around the entire city" for over a week trying to find him.
On Monday, they were told that a body was found at the nursing home wearing a bracelet with Elin's name on it and the same clothing he had disappeared in.
"A detective came ... and said that he was found in a closet, decomposed to the point of no recognition," Kimberly said.
A person who answered the phone Tuesday at the facility hung up without answering questions. NBC News also tried contacting the facility through its website but did not immediately receive a response.
Elin, a chef, was remembered by his niece as a "loving, selfless" family man.
"There’s no such thing as him coming around and not lighting up a room with a joke, with laughter, with humor," she said. "He was just an honest person, and this is not the way we wanted to send him off."
He was supposed to be at the facility for 12 weeks to undergo rehabilitation and physical therapy, she said.
Kimberly said Elin had wanted to be buried in Haiti, where his mother is buried, but because of the condition of the body, the family doesn't know if that is still possible.
"It’s like a movie, a terrible horror film," she said. "Now we have to seek justice because we can’t even give him a proper burial."
