Mario Moore was killed and buried in Pauper's Field. His family says authorities never contacted them

Mario Moore, 40, was discovered dead on a chilly, rainy morning on February 2nd, wrapped in a blue-gray tarp, by an individual on their way to work, according to the Hinds County Coroner's Office's report. Moore's death was ruled a homicide by the coroner's report, with blunt force trauma to the head listed as the cause of death.

Two months later, on April 3rd, the Hinds County Board of Supervisors granted approval for Moore's burial in a prison cemetery, and he was interned there three months later, on July 14th, as revealed by documents.

However, Moore's family claimed that they had never been contacted by either the police or the coroner's office, his sister Marquita told CNN. It wasn't until early October, when they saw his name on a list of 24 homicide victims published by WLBT, CNN's local affiliate in Jackson, and learned that the Jackson Police Department had not publicly released the identities of the victims, that they learned about his death.

"I couldn't sleep at all. I was tossing and turning and my mom was too," Marquita, 39, said. "We had no peace. I thrown myself all night long, and my mother too."

"It's unbelievable," Marquita added. "We couldn't believe that someone would want to kill Mario."

It isn't the first time in recent months that questions have been raised about efforts to notify the next of kin when a body is discovered: Dexter Wade, 37, whose family also remained unaware of his burial in the same area after being struck by a police cruiser driven by an off-duty officer, according to civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents both families.

"The more we learn about the Dexter Wade case and the deception that his mother endured, the more we worry that other families may be suffering or face the same fate," Crump said in a statement.

"Again, it raises the question of why next of kin were left in the dark," Crump said in a statement, referring to Wade's case.

"It's inhumane to leave a family without answers and deny them the opportunity to give their loved ones a decent burial," Crump said. "The Jackson Police Department has decided to bury these men in Skid Row and give them only three memorials." Sixty-four. They shame them."

In the case of Moore, the Jackson Police Department (which announced in November that it would introduce a death notification protocol) and the coroner's office both claimed to have made efforts to contact Moore's family, stating that they left contact information at his last known address, according to a report by WLBT and the coroner's office. However, a report by the coroner's office showed that the telephone number listed for Moore's brother, Gavin, was not a work number (Mario's brother is named Godwin Onuchukwu, not Gavin Moore, Marquita said).

Both agencies declined to provide further comment to CNN.

Marquita, however, told CNN that she didn't believe that the efforts made by the authorities to contact her family were sufficient and that they would have had no trouble finding him if he had committed a crime.

"If my brother committed a crime, they'd knock on the door and look for him," Marquita said.