Elk Grove Woman Still Waiting For Report On Husband's Death

ELK GROVE (CBS13) - A husband and father died suddenly in his sleep in his Folsom home last fall. But now nine months later, the coroner still hasn't told the man's widow how he died.

Dre Goheen, who now lives in Elk Grove, tells CBS13 she's called the coroner's office at least 20 times, and each time her heart breaks when she's told the report isn't ready.

The morning of Oct. 7, 2011, Dre's life changed forever. Her husband Greg, just 40 years old, never woke up.

"I came in and touched his foot, and he was just not there anymore," she said Tuesday. "I don't know, to be quite honest with you, what happened."

Desperate for answers, Dre has called the coroner's office twice a month since October. But she says she's been told the same thing repeatedly - the report is not ready because of cutbacks.

"The 7th of every month is a hard day because I call on it the monthly anniversary of his death," she said.

We showed up at the Sacramento County coroner's office looking for answers.

Coroner Greg Wyatt says his staff has been cut by 50 percent and says unfortunately Dre is not alone.

"We certainly recognize the difficulty of having such a backlog, how it hurts families," he said. "We're certainly attacking that backlog. Our goal is to have no case older than 90 days."

Wyatt says last week he hired another doctor to speed up the process and expects his office to catch up. The coroner also took Dre's number and told us he'd call her directly and explain why there has been such a long delay.

But for Dre and her two children "we just have no closure."

For now, Greg's death remains a mystery and their healing process is on hold.

"I think being married for 13 and a half years and caring for him for 13 and a half years, I think I deserve it," she said.