The entire body of an Indian-born guy who was poisoned with cyanide just after winning the lottery was exhumed Friday for an autopsy that authorities hope can help remedy the mystery surrounding his death.
A black hearse escorted by 4 police vehicles carried away your body of Urooj Khan from a cemetery over the city's North Side, as well as Cook County Health-related Examiner's Workplace was anticipated to carry out the autopsy instantly, spokeswoman Mary Paleologos explained.
She stated examiners will consider blood, tissue, bone, hair and nail samples. They will also examine the lungs, liver, spleen and contents of your abdomen and intestines. Paleologos explained tests on Khan's organs also might figure out regardless of whether the poison was swallowed, inhaled or injected.
The autopsy was anticipated to get completed by Friday afternoon, however it's going to consider two to 3 weeks to obtain check final results, she stated.
Khan, 46, died in July as he was about to gather $425,000 in lottery winnings. His death at first was ruled a outcome of pure brings about. But a relative asked for more tests that exposed in November that he had been poisoned.
Khan's wife, Shabana Ansari, as well as other relatives have denied any function in his death and expressed a wish to understand the reality.
Authorities continue to be tightlipped about whom they could suspect.
At dawn on Friday, employees at Rosehill Cemetery started scooping up dark clumps of ground hardened from the cold climate. Two guys then completed the function with shovels, along with a Muslim cleric explained prayers beside Khan's grave. His physique was positioned in the white bag and loaded right into a hearse.
1 of Khan's brothers was present, as well as officials through the health-related examiner's workplace and Chicago police detectives.
Police kept about half a dozen Television news crews at a distance, past the cemetery's fence, and two news helicopters circled overhead.
Khan had come towards the U.S. from his residence in Hyderabad, India, in 1989, establishing various dry-cleaning enterprises and acquiring into some real-estate investments.
Regardless of owning foresworn gambling soon after generating the haj pilgrimage to Mecca in 2010, Khan purchased a lottery ticket in June. He jumped "two feet within the air" and shouted, "I hit a million," he recalled at a lottery ceremony later on that month.
He mentioned winning the lottery meant every little thing to him and that he planned to make use of his winnings to spend off mortgages, broaden his company and donate to St. Jude's Children's Study Hospital.
He was just days from obtaining his winnings when he died in advance of dawn on July twenty.
The evening ahead of, Khan ate dinner with his wife, daughter and father-in-law inside their household in Chicago's North Side community of West Rogers Park, residence to several immigrants from India and Pakistan.
Sometime that evening, Khan awoke feeling sick and collapsed as he attempted to acquire up from a chair, his wife has stated, based on the Chicago Sun-Times.
Without any outward sign of trauma and no preliminary suspicions, authorities carried out only a essential toxicology screening and an external examination of Khan's physique in July. They established that he died of pure triggers, because of this of the narrowing and hardening of coronary arteries.
But a concerned relative - whose identity stays a mystery - came forward days later on with suspicions and asked authorities to seem deeper. They then carried out a complete toxicology screening on fluids that had been drawn in the physique and uncovered a lethal volume of cyanide in his blood, main the health care examiner in November to reclassify the death a homicide.
Exhuming your body will permit authorities to conduct an autopsy and, based upon the issue of your stays, to collect far more information that may be presented in court in the event the situation goes to trial. It could also offer essential clues about how the cyanide entered his entire body.
Health-related Examiner Stephen Cina was to hold a press conference Friday afternoon to offer specifics over the affliction with the entire body and the way considerably testing they have been capable to do.
Khan was offered a religious burial and his entire body was not embalmed.
His physique is usually to be reburied Monday.
Khan died with out a will, opening the door to a court battle. The businessman's widow and siblings fought for months more than his estate, like the lottery check out.
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