Women Tried to Check in Man for Flight Hours After His Death
Man died 12 hours before relatives tried getting him on flight, police say.
LONDON, April 9, 2010 — -- Postmortem results show that Curt Willi Jarant, the dead man whose wife and stepdaughter tried to check him in for a weekend flight from Liverpool, England, to Berlin, died up to 12 hours before airport officials pronounced him dead, British police said today.
The pathologist who conducted the postmortem exam "concluded the man died of natural causes," police said.
The two women, Germans who live in Manchester, England, have been released on bail until June 1, a Manchester police official said.
They face possible charges for "failing to give notification of death," according to police, who are investigating whether the women conspired to avoid repatriation costs with an unusual tactic.
As Jarant, 91, appeared to slump in his wheelchair, an airport worker, who helped lift Jarant's body out of a cab and into a wheelchair, immediately suspected that he was dead. Andrew Millea told the BBC that Jarant's body was "ice cold," adding, "I knew straight away that the man was dead, but they reassured me that he 'always sleeps like that.'"
Millea then informed the airport's security staff of his suspicions, while the passengers waited in the check-in line. An examination revealed that Jarant was dead.
Gitta Jarant, 66, and Anke Anusic, 41, Jarant's wife and stepdaughter, told the BBC that they had no knowledge of the former pilot's death when they arrived at the airport. "We had checked his temperature and checked his well-being," Anusic said, "He was warm and wasn't in an emergency situation."
She said Jarant, who battled Alzheimer's, was wearing sunglasses to hide an unsightly eye and avoid the stares of fellow passengers.
Were the Women Trying to Avoid Paying for Repatriation?
Repatriation can be expensive and cumbersome, involving documentation, embalming the body, paying for coffins and air freight charges.
But Anusic denied any such plan, telling the BBC, "A dead person cannot be carried to Germany. There are too many people checking, security. How can you bring a dead person to Germany?"
"He was alive, he was not dead, he was pale but he was not dead. He was like this for months, he behaved like this for months," she said.
Remembering her late husband, Gitta Jarant told the BBC he was "the best man of the world," adding, "My Willi is my god."
She told the Daily Mail that she planned to "contact the German embassy to complain. Willi was a fantastic man and I loved him very much. This is all crazy. I would never do such a thing."