Body of Deputy Still Being Held at Mortuary : Law Enforcement: Widow has yet to issue instructions for burial or cremation for officer slain by another deputy while robbing house in Encinitas.

One month after he was shot and killed by a fellow officer while robbing a rural home in North County, the body of Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Stanewich remains at a San Diego mortuary at the family’s request, authorities said.

Neither Sheriff’s Department officials, the manager of the funeral home nor the county medical examiner could explain the decision apparently made by Kathy Stanewich, the slain officer’s wife, not to have either buried or cremated her husband’s remains.

“I wish I knew,” said Elmer Geissler, manager of the Clairemont Mortuary. “The family asked us to put a hold on the body temporarily, and we said ‘sure.’ But we don’t normally hold bodies for this long without making some kind of decision of what’s going to be done.”

Kathy Stanewich and another family member declined to return telephone calls Friday.

Greissler said the deputy’s body is being kept in a refrigeration unit, still clothed in the same blue jeans and Harley Davidson motorcycle T-shirt as when viewed in state by friends, family and colleagues at the funeral home last month.

“We get calls from the family every now and then,” Greissler said. “We’re just sitting on it (the body) until they decide what they’re going to do. But we don’t know when that will be.”

An armed and masked Stanewich was shot July 3 after forcing his way into the rural home of Donald Van Ort and his 82-year-old grandmother. Stanewich, a detective, had served a search warrant at the residence a month before the break-in and had learned that the Van Ort’s kept more than $100,000 in cash locked away in a safe there.

Authorities now believe an off-duty Stanewich returned with an accomplice to take the money at gunpoint. The would-be accomplice ran off before storming the house, and Stanewich was later shot and killed by Deputy Gary E. Steadman, a colleague and friend of Stanewich’s, who responded to the scene.

The second suspect in the case is still at large. Steadman returned to work this week at the Sheriff Department’s Encinitas station but has declined to publicly discuss the incident.

Sheriff Jim Roache, who spoke to Kathy Stanewich several times after the shooting, said he had no idea that Stanewich’s body had not yet been buried or cremated.

He said he has not ruled out the prospect that the family intends to file against the department.

“It’s bizarre,” Roache said Friday about the body. “Maybe the family is considering a wrongful-death lawsuit charging the department and Steadman with civil rights violations. . . . Some people file frivolous lawsuits.”

The department’s legal counsel, Rick Pinckard, said he had not been contacted by any attorney representing the family and could not understand why the body would still be in the mortuary.

“There’s no indication that there’s any kind of evidence retention issue,” he said. “An official autopsy was done and a toxicology screen was done. We no longer have any need or interest in the body. I don’t know what the family’s motivation would be.”

Dr. Brian Blackbourne, the county medical examiner, said an autopsy on Stanewich was conducted July 4, the day after the fatal shooting. The body was released to the funeral home the next day, he said.

On July 17, the office released results of the procedure, including toxicology tests that failed to detect evidence of any drugs in the officer’s system at the time of his death, Blackbourne said.

He said it was not out of the question for the family to seek a second autopsy by a forensic pathologist not associated with the case and, if so, welcomed them to do so.

“We’re comfortable with the test as it stands,” he said. “It’s the usual findings you would get in cases involving gunshot wounds. I don’t know what the family’s concerns might be.”

Blackbourne said survivors have in the past delayed making decisions on a body’s disposition because they are out of country at the time of a death. But that is not the case here.

Twila Scrivner, assistant chief deputy registrar for the county office of vital statistics, said state law requires that a death certificate be filed with her office within eight days of a death.

After that, a funeral director can file for another permit to continue holding the body until a disposition decision is made.

“It doesn’t happen often,” she said, “but as long as they have a permit to hold the body, they’re legal.”