Foreign Affairs working with funeral homes in Turin to have bodies repatriated
NASSAU, BAHAMAS – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Wednesday that a Foreign Service Officer in Turin, Italy, has received the death certificates and passports of Alrae Ramsey and Blair John, the two men whose bodies were pulled from the Po River in Turin earlier this month.
The Ministry said the family members of both men were advised of this latest update.
“The Ministry is at present working assiduously with the funeral homes in Turin and Nassau to have the bodies repatriated to The Bahamas as quickly as possible, so that they can be turned over to their family members,” outlined a statement released last night by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
“The Ministry will provide further updates as soon as additional information becomes available,” the statement concluded.
The bodies of Ramsey, 29, a Foreign Service Officer and John, 28, a Psychology Ph.D. student, were discovered by Italian authorities in waters of the River Po in Turin, Italy on Tuesday, June 4 and Wednesday, June 5, 2019.
Initial forensic medical examination indicated that the men were in the river for two to three days, according to international reports.
Autopsies were performed on both bodies on Monday, June 10.
According to various Italian media reports, the initial findings of the autopsy, performed by coroner Paola Rapetti, indicated that the men died from drowning.
A toxicological examination was also performed.
Italian news agencies reported that the results of this exam revealed that no drugs were found in the system of both men but there were traces of alcohol.
However, the family members of Blair John have questioned the results of the initial autopsy.
On Wednesday, the father of Blair John told a local daily that he did not believe that his son met his demise as a result of drowning.
Alrae Ramsey was employed with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since December 9, 2013.
He was posted at The Bahamas Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti as third secretary/vice-consul in 2016-2017.
He was granted an in-service award to pursue a one-year postgraduate diploma program in diplomacy/international relations and languages at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna in Austria last year for the period: September 2018 to June 2019.
Blair John, a 2009 St. Augustine’s College graduate, was near the completion of his Ph.D in psychology at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada.
He traveled to Turin to make a presentation at a psychology conference on behalf of the university, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
John, however, never presented the research.
According to relatives, he attended day one of the conference, but did not show up on May 31 or June 1, according to his mother, Cathleen Rahming.
John had a short stint in London to visit his sister before traveling to Turin.
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