HONOLULU -- The chief investigator at Honolulu's Medical Examiner's Office said the office is doing a "mediocre" job investigating deaths. She said that's because of a "lack of experience" and "training" for some investigators.

The woman making the allegations has also filed a complaint against the city's medical examiner, alleging sex and age discrimination, charges the medical examiner denies.

Medical examiner investigators work behind police lines investigating all kinds of deaths, from accidents and murders to suicides. They must quickly decide whether foul play is suspected and whether police detectives should be called to the scene.

"To be a death investigator, it takes years of experience," said Susan Siu.

Siu has been an investigator with the Honolulu Medical Examiner's Office for 21 years and who has been the chief investigator for the last four years. She's filed a complaint against her boss, Medical Examiner Dr. Kanthi De Alwis, charging her with age and sex discrimination and sexual harassment.

But, De Alwis' lawyer calls Siu's allegations "untrue."

"Dr. De Alwis denies these allegations, and looks forward to complete vindication when the city completes its personnel office investigation that's currently ongoing," Jim Bickerton, attorney for Honolulu's chief medical examiner Dr. Kanthi De Alwis.

Bickerton questions Siu's motives.

"Sometimes people can do these things for other reasons. Perhaps they're just disgruntled; perhaps they see it as a way to make money. I can't get into her head and say why she's doing it. I can just tell you that these allegations don't have any merit," Bickerton said.

Siu said she has repeatedly complained about a lack of training for some inexperienced investigators at the Medical Examiner's Office. And she points to one case several years back where an unseasoned investigator mistakenly made the determination that there was a natural death so she did not call police detectives to the scene.

"And it turned out when they did the autopsy, it was a gunshot homicide. So that investigation was greatly hampered because of the lack of knowledge by our investigator," Siu said.

That investigator is no longer working for the office, because she moved away. So what's the quality of death investigations now?

"Mediocre," Siu said.

"Why?" KITV investigative reporter Keoki Kerr asked.

"Because there's not sufficient training," she said.

In the last 20 years, only one investigator has been sent to the mainland for training and that happened just this year, because De Alwis said they haven't had the money for that. De Alwis said her office holds in-house training sessions "practically every Tuesday."

Also, none of the department's seven investigators have been credentialed by a national board of death investigators. De Alwis said she's working with city personnel officials to require college degrees for all future investigators, so they can be credentialed.

DeAlwis said the quality of investigations by her department is "nothing but the best."

In a written statement, she said. "We as a team provide the best and most comprehensive death investigation in accordance with or surpassing all applicable standards."