Widow sues US cruise line after husband’s body stored in drinks cooler

Ship lacked required onboard morgue and Robert Jones's body had turned green and was decomposing by time it reached Florida

A cruise line stored the body of a passenger who died onboard in a drinks cooler for several days, causing the man's body to turn green and decompose, the man's widow alleged in a federal lawsuit filed in Florida last week.

The man, Robert Jones, died of a heart attack on 15 August last year while onboard the Celebrity Equinox during a Caribbean cruise. Ship crew members allegedly told his widow, Marilyn Jones, that she could either take the body on shore in San Juan, Puerto Rico, or that they could store it in the working onboard morgue until they returned to Florida. Staffers told her that the body had only a 50% chance of undergoing an autopsy in San Juan and that she would have to remain there alone until the body was autopsied and embalmed, Jones said in the complaint. She chose to keep the body on the ship.