Christopher Alder: police to exhume body of woman buried in grave

originally by: The Guardian
published: 9th November 2011

The exhumation of a woman mistakenly buried in the grave of a former paratrooper will also disturb the remains of the ex-soldier’s niece, his family has warned. 

Police are investigating how the blunder occurred after the body of Christopher Alder was discovered in a mortuary 11 years after his family thought they had buried him. Alder, 37, choked to death while handcuffed and lying on the floor of a police station in Hull on 1 April 1998. 

Alder’s brother, Richard, revealed the ashes of his 25-year-old daughter Laura were scattered on Christopher’s grave after she died in 2006.

It appears that an elderly woman called Grace Kamara was buried in his place in 2000. Alder’s body was discovered in the place where her body was believed to have been stored.

Kamara died from natural causes in 1999, but her burial was delayed and finally scheduled for on 4 November. The mix-up apparently only came to light because her friends and family asked to see the body.

Richard Alder said: “We are distraught that Christopher’s body was left for 11 years in a mortuary after we thought we had buried him.

“This has come as a sickening blow after everything we went through when Christopher died in police custody in 1998.

“Our shock and grief is made worse by the fact that when my daughter, Laura, died in 2006 her ashes were scattered on Christopher’s grave at her request.

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Posted by Alison Leslie on 14/11/2011. Filed under Custody Deaths. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry