Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised of the name and image of a deceased person included in this article.
The remains of a 40-year-old Indigenous woman will be cremated after a family dispute left her body in a “legal limbo” in a morgue for almost four years.
The body of Central Coast woman Debbie-Lee Gill has been held at Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital since she died in January 2021 as a result of the lengthy dispute that came to an end in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday.
The NSW coroner ruled the cause of death as suicide at the time.
Her death was followed by a lengthy dispute over the treatment of Mrs Gill’s remains, which was fought between her biological family and Leslie Speeding.
Mr Speeding claimed to be Ms Gill’s ‘de facto spouse’ and ‘senior next of kin’, news.com.au reported.
Mr Speeding wanted to bury the Wiradjuri woman, but her family wanted her cremated.
In typical circumstances, a NSW hospital will hold a body for up to 21 days, but provisions are made for exceptional circumstances.
Debbie-Lee Gill’s remains will be cremated after being kept in a mortuary since her death
The NSW Supreme Court ruled on the dispute last week and ordered the cremation of Ms Gill’s body.
Judge Geoff Lindsay said the argument had gone on too long and handed down his decision.
‘[It’s] leaving the body of the deceased in cold storage, personal animosity boiling over and the public purse diminished by the cost of it all,” he said.
He ruled in favor of the biological family because he found that Mr Speeding did not have enough money to bury Mrs Gill.
He said the family’s decision to take the dispute to court at their own expense showed they would move quickly to have Ms Gill’s body cremated because the logistics of the case favored them.
“I have no confidence that (Mr Speeding) could reasonably be expected to have the means or will to arrange a funeral, let alone a burial,” Judge Lindsay said.
He was also quick to judge the family act and had Mrs Gill cremated within two months.
Mrs Gill’s sister Cathy-May said the years since the death had been an upsetting ordeal.
Ms Gill’s body has been kept in a refrigerator since her death in 2021 as a family dispute raged
‘It takes a huge toll. My parents have aged about a hundred years in the past three years,” she told the newspaper ABC.
“I think we’ve all been a little bit on autopilot every day.
“She had her own daughter cremated, so it wasn’t like she was against cremation, and then we all knew that that was her wish: to be placed with Angel.”
Ms Gill’s fourth child, Angel, was stillborn in 1999.
Mrs. Gill is survived by her son and two daughters.
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