Number of unclaimed bodies increasing at Bay area morgues

Among the dead passengers on the one-way trip into the Gulf of Mexico was a homeless man who died at the end of a rope dangling from the 56th Street bridge over the Hillsborough River and a 59-year-old heart disease patient who shut himself in his home to die, leaving a note addressed to the medical examiner.

Most had no one in their lives to care for them before or after they breathed their last breaths. Some had family that couldn't scrape enough money together to pay for a funeral.

The cremated remains of these unfortunate souls ended up on the boat churning west from St. Petersburg in December 2008, out into the Gulf where the aqua-blue depths waited. It's the method of disposal preferred by the state. It's the law.

The trips are made a couple of times a year, whenever the cardboard boxes, each filled with remains of an unclaimed body, begin to fill the storage areas of funeral homes. In Hillsborough County, there are more than 60 boxes in storage now awaiting a trip. The trips to the Gulf are the end of a process that begins when an unclaimed body ends up on the coroner's door.

The vessels carrying the cremated remains are making more trips to scatter their cargo to the deep.
Each year since 2002, the number of unclaimed bodies has increased at the morgue.

Last year, the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office had 673 bodies that the county paid to have cremated, representing about a 20 percent increase over county-paid-for cremations of unclaimed bodies in 2008.

Hillsborough Medical Examiner's Office manager Dick Bailey would not speculate about why there is an increase every year for unclaimed bodies processed through the morgue. He said it may have to do with demographics, including the number of homeless in the region or the economy.

"But," he said, "I really don't have a clue."

Pinellas County cremations of unclaimed bodies also has increased incrementally each year, said Nathan Hobson, who handles indigent funeral arrangements for Alife Tribute Funeral Care in Largo, which holds the county contract for indigent cremations and burials.

"It's not by major numbers," he said, "but it does increase every year."

He said the number of homeless unclaimed bodies has remained the same and the demographic that is on the upswing is the number of people whose relatives just can't afford funerals. Trips to the Gulf with Pinellas unclaimed remains are made about once every three months, with about 30 boxes to be scattered.

"The last three years, I guess, would be because of the economy," he said. "There are cases where families just don't have the funds and they have to apply for county assistance."

Scattering the remains is the easiest part of the process. If making a positive identification of a homeless person without identification isn't difficult enough, there's the search for next of kin.

In cases where investigators have a name, they can go to Social Security to find a birthplace, parents, husbands, wives, siblings or other relatives that can be contacted. Investigators also subscribe to a genealogy service and track down relatives through family trees.

Amanda Whidden, manager of investigative section with the Hillsborough Medical Examiner's Office, said that most of the unclaimed bodies that follow the path through her office have names and relatives who have been notified.

Many survivors want the cremated remains returned, since it is a fairly inexpensive, with only the shipping to be paid by the family. Others shrug with indifference when told the local morgue has one of their long-lost relatives they haven't seen or heard from in decades.

"We look into the computer and we check with law enforcement, local and state," she said. "We check hospitals and doctor's offices. We check friends and homeless shelters."

Among those who went on the Gulf of Mexico voyage 14 months ago, according to medical examiner's records, were:

William Gregory was a homeless man putting garbage into a trash bin in Spring Hill when he stumbled backward, fell and cracked his head on the pavement. The 57-year-old man was rushed to Tampa for treatment, but the skull fracture that caused hemorrhaging in his brain was too much for doctors to heal.

Pedro Ortiz, 60, was a homeless man whose nearest kin lived in Ohio. One day, he was seen vomiting blood. A day later, he was found in a Tampa alleyway, under a bush, leaning against a large rock. He wasn't breathing.

Audrey Carman was a 74-year-old woman who lived in Tampa with her husband when she died at St. Joseph's Hospital suffering from anemia, anorexia and a host of other ailments. She said she hadn't seen a doctor in 48 years. Her husband couldn't afford a funeral.

Rafael Torres, 51, had lived in shelters for the last two years of his life and he had had enough. One afternoon, he walked to the 56th Street bridge over the Hillsborough River, tied one end of a rope to the railing and the other around his neck and jumped. He dangled a couple of feet above the water until firefighters cut him down.

Dennis Collier was a 59-year-old heart disease patient who had not been seen by neighbors for several weeks and one day they noticed a foul odor coming from his home. He was found in his bed. Next to his decomposing body was a note addressed to the medical examiner's office with a list of last wishes and locations of fingerprints, if positive identification was needed.

All the passengers on the boat underwent extensive scrutiny, one last shot at documenting a life. And a death. They were a tiny part of what goes on at the Hillsborough Medical Examiner's Office when bodies arrive.

The medical examiner's crew of investigators is assigned the task of identifying every body that comes in, figure out the cause of death and contact next of kin. The office also makes an effort to determine if the person is eligible for burial in a national cemetery as a veteran.

Not all the unclaimed bodies that pass through the Tampa morgue end up in the same resting place.

Florida law directs the medical examiner to contact the anatomical board at the University of Florida when an unclaimed body lands at its door. The board arranges for unclaimed bodies to be used for medical research and teaching.

Unless the body is crushed, has a contagious disease, is overly obese, is severely decomposed or survivors object to the use in medical research, the anatomical board gets the first claim.

In those cases, the body is kept on ice for a couple of years, as parts are used in medical research and as educational tools for medical students. After that, if no one claims the body for burial, the board cremates what's left and sends it on a final voyage into the Gulf of Mexico where the ashes are released to a watery grave.

Unclaimed bodies that don't end up on a medical school's slab go from the Tampa morgue to the Florida Mortuary.

Ron Mees is the funeral director at Florida Mortuary, a privately owned funeral home on North Nebraska Avenue that contracts with the county to handle indigent burial arrangements. That includes cremation for bodies that have been identified and claimed, but whose kin can't afford a funeral.

Relatives are contacted, and if they don't want the remains, the ashes sit at the funeral home for 120 days, per Florida law. At the end of that time, calls are made to relatives again, Mees said.

"We give the family one more opportunity," he said, "and if they still don't want them, we go ahead and schedule the scattering of the remains."

The cremated remains, like the dozen that made the trip at the end of 2008, end up on a small boat, heading west of St. Petersburg. Trips are not made on a regular basis, he said. The boat heads out whenever the boxes of cremated remains begin to fill the storage area at the Florida Mortuary, usually once or twice a year.

The boat motors three miles out, at least, the remains are scattered, Mees said, in a dignified, solemn ritual that includes prayers offered by the captain.

The exact latitude and longitude are recorded for spots where each urn is emptied, he said, so that relatives know where the remains were scattered. At later dates, Mees said, relatives may want to take a boat ride to the spot and pray.

Counties in Florida switched to cremation a few years ago to save on costs. The cost of cremation is about $425, compared with $1,500 for a burial.

Still, there's more to the process than compiling numbers and figuring costs; deducing the causes of death and making positive identifications, said Bailey.

"We are not bureaucrats," he said. "We have to deal with families. We have to tell someone their relative is dead."

Bailey said that 1,900 bodies are processed through the office every year, and of those, 1,300 go under the autopsy scalpel. Every case is assigned to an investigator who manages the process from start to finish, he said.

Investigators must have a medical background and be inquisitive and in some cases pushy. One investigator, a former emergency room nurse started work one Monday and within a couple of days, announced she would finish out the week, but this was not for her. She returned to nursing patients in the emergency room.

"We average about 5 1/2 [autopsies] a day," he said. At any given time, an investigator - there are nine in the office - has about a dozen open cases.

"If you can't multi-task in this place," he said, "you won't be successful."

In a corner cubicle of the investigations division at the Hillsborough Medical Examiner's Office, Harrison Cowan flipped the pages of an open case. Whenever a body comes in that he knows won't be claimed, the big concern is the leg work it takes to positively identify the remains and find any relatives.

One case on his desk was that of a homeless man. Finding the next of kin took two weeks, he said.

"This," he said, "takes a lot of work."