You know what its like in lost and found...

I'm trying to be fair here but for the life of me I can't think of any good reason for this to happen. Simple math, you have a certain number of incoming cases, an average time per case and a certain number of resouces available to perform each autopsy. It should be simple to determine when you need help and should never get to this point. I know it's a cold analysis but unless they were denied the needed help I cannot imagine what the excuse is. Sounds like simple mis-management on a grand scale. If the city itself denied the resources needed then there maybe there are more people to blame then the doctor in charge.

We still have a lot of missing, unclaimed and missing people that have not been found," he said.

Really? Cuz, like, if they were found, they wouldn't be, like, missing?

It's because all of those bodies belong to people who can't or won't pay for burial. Sad as it is, the city's broke, the state is broke, and there is no money left.

Welcome to the future. At least in Illinois.

Wow - this is a meltdown of the old system NOW in motion, be ready folks, hold on, and try to stay in peace in your heart and strengthen your connection to your soul.

I think it's impractical to idealize death and corpses, which, in reality, are no more than the detritus of a life ended. Simply dispose of the corpses in the most economical fashion available.

Really, this is ridiculous at best. Who cares? They are simply dead carcasses nothing more. Simply because they were "loved" ones when they were alive doesn't carry over in death. Their conscience is gone there is nothing in the body that needs to be preserved. Just another case of people making money off the dead, funeral homes, churches, limos, flowers, caskets absolutely useless to the dead. I really don't think they care one way or the other, they are dead. Stop putting so much importance's on the dead and pretending they are being dishonored they aren't. Another way religion brain washes our nation.

I feel like there is more to this story. Why have the numbers changed now? here in Oregon, we are having less people claim their dead because they can't afford to bury them. Could that be it? Is it more violent deaths in Chicago? What caused the change? I understand the outrage, but obviously no one wants the bodies to pile up.

There are several senarios here. If they keep them around long enough their names will end up on voting ballots, some of them are still drawing pensions, welfare checks, and other assistance from the state and Govt. Those bastards know what they're doing. Then of course some of the families simply cannot afford proper disposal. I would venture futher to say that it's just not Chicago.

"This is a reminder of how my ancestors -- how the remains of our ancestors were treated like garbage," Peggy Hudgens said through tears.... I hardly think race plays a part in this. Incompetence, yes.

either give the facility more resources so it can do it's job or stop the violence that supply more bodies to be processed. that's a lot of bodies to be processed and you can't rush them if you want autopsies to be correct in case they need those data for criminal prosecution.

I'm certain deep budget cuts were behind this. It is my understanding that the windy city is not so financially concrete at this time. Like many other city/state/federal offices, I'm sure the Medical Examiners office had to absorb some lost revenue lately.

What you call "a morgue over-flowing with unclaimed bodies", I call a Chicago voting drive. Obama 2012, baby!

Why in the nine hells would this be happening?

Are these people who were originally missing? As in missing persons who could not be accounted for living or dead?

Or are these people who passed away with loved ones knowing where they went but then just randomly got caught up in some sort of weird "oops we misplaced the body" sort of deal?

I don't know much about storing bodies, but it would seem that if it was a matter of the family not being responsible for one reason or another they would cremate the remains. Even storing a body in a morgue does not prevent a certain amount of decay. These bodies won't last forever especially if they have not been "processed" for burial. The John and Jane Does are a different story. But even then, they could store samples from these bodies with finger prints and photos and cremate them as well. It's difficult to think of a body being left like this. Someone needs to treat them with respect and lay them to rest. They can't just keep piling them up. Funerals are expensive but cremations are a reasonable option.

Here we go again. Another article posted by NBC that is poorly written and look to insight bad feelings.

The issue has been simmering for months, if not years. As many as 363 bodies were reportedly once collected in a cooler designed to hold just 300. Ministers gathered Friday to pray for the deceased and to call for justice.

Anybody that wants to read a better article should click on the link included in the second line of the article and read the Sun Times article. It is better written.

This is a grim reminder of the death of my now x-husband. In 2006 in June he passed away. In approximately October of 2005 he was hit by a newspaper distribution truck at an intersection while he was riding to school on a bicycle. The impact threw him 300 feet through the air...destroying his left hip, breaking his left arm in 3 places, breaking his left ribs and splitting his skull so badly his brain matter extruded. It dislocated his jaw and damaged some of his teeth. Someone called the ambulance. The paramedics arrived and took a look at his massive injuries and bleeding from his skull...one of them said, "This old boy is not going to make it!" Apparently, "the old boy" was conscious and his eyes flipped open and he spoke loudly, "Put the petal to metal! I am still alive!" It was only then that the paramedics responded...and put him on the tram, loaded him and vesseled him off to the Hospital.

He died three times in the hospital and they revived him each time. He was in the hospital a month before he was released...brain damaged and in a wheel chair. That was October, 2005.

In May, 2006 I was walking down the Mall corridor in Fresno, Cal. and I saw hobbling toward me a very old appearing man...balding, crippled and on crutches. The man was practically skin and bone and weighted maybe 80 pounds. Next to him strolled a tiny elderly woman...it was not me!

I began to pass them...and the man stared at me...Merrily he said. I was not certain I heard my name, so I continued to walk past them...but he repeated my name, "Merrily?" Then I paused and really looked...I recognized my now divorced spouse from 14 years earlier...and asked, "who are you?" He said, "I am Michael, you husband!" We were divorced in 1992. But he never let me go, I suppose...this trauma had produced his deepest desire: to see me one more time before he said goodbye.

I began to cry and we embraced. His girlfriend asked me to sit with him and talk to him as she said, "Michael needs to talk to you...for closure." So we choose a table and he explained his accident to me. At the time he was also going to Fresno State University. He was studying Electrical Engineering. Michael was a brilliant man...however his addiction issues was his constant battleground!

We parted and they invited me to their apartment near the University. It was symbolic to me because the apartments were exactly in the same location where we lived when we moved to Fresno in 1985...the end was a reflection of the beginning. And in between 1985 and 2006, Micheal had lost his mother, her mother, his grandmother and grandfather, his step-mother, his Father, and I had lost my mother and father as well. We both experienced more than our share of sorrows.

I thank God that I was able to say good-bye to Micheal, my x-husband...we visited a few times between the living and the dying...he explained to me that his brain could not function like it had because he had lost some of him higher math function abilities. And he was now having to face not ever walking distances again...and was in the process of getting an expensive motorized wheel chair. In June of 2006...he supposedly graduated from California University in Fresno with a degree in Electrical Engineering...but he expressed, "no one will ever hire me!"

Approximately 5 days after he graduated...his girlfriend called me..."Merrily, Michael is dead." I was not believing what I was hearing. She told me over the phone that "He passed away in his sleep. When I awoke this morning he was laying next to me, stiff and cold." I asked her how he died. She said he took too many sleeping pills and pain killers...she said the bottle was empty.

I cried and wailed and knew there was nothing I could do...but his girlfriend wanted me to call his relatives. Apparently she did not know where they were. Even after 14 years of being separate...I knew. I asked where his body was. She said, "the coroner came and picked him up and he was in the county morgue." I tracked this information down and the coroner was doing an autopsy. That made the offical information about the overdose...real. Michael had submitted to his own demise. He graduated. Something he wanted to do ever since we were together. And he saw me to say goodbye, one last time.

That was not the end of this story. His girlfriend decided not to claim the body. She said the country would cremate his remains for free. If she claimed his body she would have to pay for it. She said she had no money to do anything. However she had possession of all his stuff...including a newly acquired 10,000 dollar motorized wheelchair.

I said I will claim his body. But the coroner said I could not because we were officially divorced. They said I could claim his body after 30 days if no one else did and after his next of kin had been notified. So this becomes now very convoluted: His girlfriend did not know any of his kin. The county of Fresno did not have any records. They had no information on his body, no ID, apparently nothing. They had no way of locating any of this information. So they asked me...a person who was not allowed to claim his body to give him a decent burial.

Mike's older brother was a Captain in the Atlanta Georgia Police Department; handsome, young and rich and a legend. I got in touch with them and then located him. I told him the sad news. He did not believe me. I said someone needs to claim Mike's body and they will not allow me to. He told me he would not allow me to claim his body...he then hemmed and hawwed about doing it himself.

Well, these calls went back and forth for a couple of weeks, meanwhile the coroner put Mike's body in cold storage and let it chill. Then it lay there for another couple of weeks. Finally his brother gave permission to cremate. But someone had to collect and pay and call for Mike's ashes. Well by then a month had gone by. Mike's body had lain in the cooler for a month before cremation and then his ashes sat in the coroners building for another month because his brother had not claimed them. Brother!

I begged the coroner to allow me to pay for his ashes...and claim them. The coroner refused, saying as long as his brother had promised...they would have to wait. And wait poor Michael did! Finally the coroner said, "the brother sent for his ashes!" What happened to Michael McCarthy's ashes after that is any bodies guess. Mike's ashes we supposed to go to the family plot, but their was only one space left...it was reserved for the first brother, out of three to die. It was next to the Father, and the Mother...

So I looked up the third remaining brother. It was several months and by now the end of summer. His other brother, did not bother contacting him and giving his the news of his brothers death. Unfortunately...it was up to me...my call. This was also a very sad experience. He was truely in disbelief. Mike and him were very close. Why did I have to be the person to relay the sad news?

The end result is: I do not know what became of Micheal McCarthy's ashes. For all I know, the older brother tossed them into a garbage bin or worse...because the third brother has no idea where Mike's ashes are either.

So I have to agree with this article. We are not taking care of our own dead. Something that made us different than animals in the beginning...was the acknowledgement of the sacred passage of birth to death and the ritual of saying goodbye and allowing the souls to rest in peace...something that is not being done today in modern society, although we are surrounded by wealth and luxury beyond imaginings and volumes of words claiming "how far society has progressed!"

I think overpopulation is the problem. If half of the world's population died today, the world would be a far more healthier place!

Will this stop the violence causing the deaths? Maybe if they start stacking the bodies outside in public view. People might see just how sobering death is to other and start having compassion for human life. You don't have to hold hands and skip rope together, just turn around and walk away when your anger flares up. Like I do everyday when I think of obama.

Is this not a Demoncrat Run City State? So then, what appears to be the problem.....Sounds like business as usual to me...Standard Demoncrat incompetence at work here....So why is any surprised or outraged...

USA is spending trillions to kill people...but not one penny on burying the dead...

Soylent Green: Coming to a store near YOU...

Wait till next year. We'll you send back your community agitator Hussein and he can give Cook County some of his in-famous "Hoax and Chains." He and Rahm-A Match Made in HELL!

I never understood why some societies make such a fuss over dead people. They're DEAD! Their corpses have no value to themselves or to their families and friends. There's no life, no mind, no spirit, no NOTHING! Unless they're carrying a contagious disease it doesn't matter how they're disposed of. Let go of ancient superstitions. "Holidays" like Day of the Dead are foolish. If you want to think about your late grandma you can do that anywhere and any time. You don't have to pack up the family once a year to put flowers on her grave or leave stones on it. Grandma doesn't "live" in the box under the ground there. She doesn't know of your visit and feel content that she's not forgotten. How long can grandma's memory last? Two generations? I never knew my great-grandparents. I don't trek around the country looking for their graves. They never knew me and can't know me now. They're DEAD!

I'm 76 and before too long I'll be dead. I won't be 'prepared' nor will I be on view for days. They'll have a little service the night that I die and the next day some church brothers will find a space in the municipal cemetery, dig the appropriate hole, and put my encased body in the ground. There will be some words spoken about me, some prayers said, perhaps some tears shed. I won't know a thing about it. They'll throw the dirt over the box and put some flowers on the mound of dirt. They'll all go home and my memory will fade with time. Get real, people. Death is the absence of life and nothing more.