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Subscribe to RSSCHICAGO -- Hundreds of bodies found stacked up at the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office will receive a proper burial Wednesday overseen by Francis Cardinal George.
The Cook County Funeral Directors Association and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago will bury 300 at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery on Chicago's South Side.
In January, it was revealed human remains had been stockpiled in the morgue’s coolers, some doubled up on trays, outraging many in the community.
A few families complained that the Medical Examiner's Office, which is led by Dr. Nancy L. Jones, had turned them away while searching for loved ones, only to find their family members in the morgue all along.
For more, visit NBCChicago.com
The Archdiocese of Chicago’s Catholic Cemeteries offered up to 300 graves and services to help clear the backlog of remains.
When commissioners asked last month why the offer wasn't accepted sooner, an administrator said the county wanted to make certain no individuals were buried in Catholic plots whose families wanted them buried elsewhere.
Last month, the Cook County Board approved measures making it easier to fire the chief medical examiner, who until now has enjoyed a virtual lifetime appointment.
Cook County, Illinois, officials say they are being forced to change morgue procedures due to an overflow of unclaimed bodies. Charlie Wojciechowski reports.
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Wow!
How is it even possible to end up with 300 bodies stacked up in a pile? Aren't there 300 families wondering WTF is going on? How did this not turn into a huge storm earlier?
How did it not turn into a huge storm earlier? It's Chicago, where people EXPECT stuff like this. My favorite part of the article was....
Would love to know how many people they contacted in their exhaustive efforts to make sure these families' wishes were followed. I am betting not many (if any). This just shows how government ends up employing the most incompetent of the incompetent.
This was reported to the people months and months ago.. Citizens were outraged.. What this fine article leaves out is the fact that these are Jane and john does some are headless unidentifiable people or people whose loved ones did not bother to collect because they could not afford any type of service..
If you do not have a plan of either burial or cremation they will not release the body..
It's not like they are purposely collecting bodies.. Their hands are tied too.. Or at least thats how the local news reports on it..
Big deal... when you are dead, a little delay in disposal of the body is hardly relevant. County should be judged by the quality of services provided to the living people.
Kjosee & Max, I guess neither of you kids read the part that said that some people who had gone there in an attempt to search a relative had been turned away. One would think that you would read an entire article before commenting. Did you read that there were 300 bodies? If you did you would think that the morgue would want to dispose of them as fast as possible--why turn anyone away who was looking for a relative?
And the Chicago political machinery is so well known for the outstanding services they provide to the living on a daily basis.
To Max^108: Our collective respect for the living is directly tied to the respect that we show for the dead. These were people who had been someone's children, parents, siblings, spouses; they had jobs, kids, careers, hopes and dreams. Not all were saints of course, but some of them made the world a better place, by their example, kindness, or generosity. Showing respect for their bodies IS a big deal.
Allison... do you have any idea what Cook Co. Illinois is like? Any idea how many unclaimed bodies they handle per month? How many people live there in abject poverty? How many homeless folks they have?
I lived there and I know.
Although Max sounds a little callous, I think he's dead-on. I'm much more concerned about the living. Preparing a body for the grave is completely understandable, but to be honest I just don't see the point. I'm fully capable of remembering the dearly departed aside from visiting a gravestone. I applaud anyone that's willing to step up and pay for these burials; showing concern for the sensibilities of society at large is an admirable thing. But when I die, don't worry about the body because I know I won't be.
@Max, yep I do, Chicago isn't the only large city in this country. Don't you think that the morgue would want to move the bodies out as rapidly as possible rather than stacking them up? Wouldn't you think that if YOU showed up looking for a relative that they would accomodate your search rather than turning you away? Come on Max, guess this is why their "fearless" leader at the morgue will no longer have what used to be an assured "lifetime appointment" that is safe...
@John, did you know that that is where some of our tax dollar goes..burying the dead and that isn't new. Why stack them up??
Allison - too bad the state of Ill cut the funding for indigent funeral services.
Allison... I'm not saying that Cook Co. administration is doing a great job in general - far from it - just pointing out things that this sensationalist article does not bring up but which are very relevant in this case. If it was up to me, all unclaimed bodies would be incinerated after 30 days, after collecting a DNA and fingerprinted for future reference.
Nik, holding bodies in the morgue for a long time has nothing to do with showing disrespect for the dead. Most of these dead people are folks the living abandoned long ago, or criminals nobody wants to own up to. The County gets stuck with them and it costs taxpayers a bunch to deal with this issue. When the county has to lay off a bunch of people to save money, we should not be expecting to spend too much money on disposal of unclaimed bodies.
This is because the families are not willing to pay for the funural so it is on the City and perhaps Catholic church' shoulders
Sounds like the Medical Examiner was a hoarder!
Along with calling the Catholic Church a nest of pedophiles, perverts, woman haters. etc., et.al, has anyone thought to give them thanks for offering dignified burial to these souls?...Or are we waiting for the Atheists to volunteer??
you have got to love chicago politics....what a city....
politics?
nope--stupidity
When state and municipal corruption and cronyism is the traditional way of life, this situation is not surprising. Gotta love that toddlin' town!!!!
That's right, it is easier for these people to vote when they are above ground!
The way the economy is going i would recomend using these people as a protein source for the welfare folks.
Yay for soylent green!
Seems like a true damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Go ahead and cremate or bury them to move the process along and some family member will scream holy hell when they finally get around to claiming the body. Let the dead stack up in a city morgue waiting for family to show up and others will scream about the inaction.
F us all...after 72 hours without being claimed, it's off to the Soylent Green or Pink Slime factory.
Except that some families did turn up, looking for a person, but were turned away.
Oh, I can just hear it now,
Grieving relative: I'm looking for my loved one who died last week
Medical examiner: Sorry, your loved one was eaten two days ago
@inmissouri, don't you just love how many posters have a problem with reading even a short article such as this and/or they have problems with reading comprehension?? Talk about dumming down of Americans. Then these idiots don't even realize what public fools they make of themselves by posting.
remember when Michael Jordan's father was cremated because the body wasn't claimed?? and the uproar to caused in North Carolina because of it???
@Allison - I think you meant dumbing down, not 'dumming'.
Is everything in Illinios corrupt or does it just seem that way? Al Capone is gone people. Its time to start following the letter of the law and using common sense. (Heavy on the last part!)
yes
yet his ideals linger on in Chicago
in politics?.....surely you jest, never happen.............
Everything in Illinois is corrupt...
Obama "started" his political career in IL. 'Nuff said.
But did you have an opinion on the article itself? I'll refer you to Post #4, 'Nuff said.
'Stuck in limbo' wrote:
REPLY: THERE IT IS!!! Wow, I started reading these posts knowing that some totally partisan and otherwise unthinking fool would figure out how to make even THIS story a 'I hate Obama' story.
Congratulations, "Here's your sign." 'Nuff said.
@IA. Scooter Tramp -
Absolutely. And don't call me Shirley. (Could not resist.)
I'm sorry for the families, but, does it surprise me that this happened in Chicago? No. By the way Tiber, you are in need of a vacation preferably way from all online devices.
How big is this morgue? 300 people take up a lot of space, at what point do run out of space? What would have happened if the Catholic Church hadn't donated graves? What was the alternate plan?
I think once all the spaces are full, each time a new body comes in the oldest body gets buried or cremated.
They were piled on top of each other in some cases, or at least doubled up, whatever that means.
Sort of a FIFO for the dead? LOL
Geez! Barring the few who's families showed up, there are that many people in just one morgue who aren't closely connected to someone - a person that would notice if they are gone. How very sad.
They had to keep this long on ice so they could continue to vote in elections!
Not really - being long-buried is no obstacle. Go ahead and bury them, just for sanitation. They can still vote for a few hundred years.
mailman,
we have a fireman with 15,000 absebtee ballots in his car trunk. Free delivery. Not even illegal here, nor out of the ordinary.
in a related story the Democratic nation committee announced it had registered 300 more voters...............:)
This is what happens when someone thinks that they are saving money where it cannot be saved.
Just another indication that Illinois in general and Cook County in particular are broke. They are paying vendors late and deferring the performance of necessary tasks due to both lack of funds and lack of motivation.
Sometimes the locals need to threaten and actually do some outrageous things to grease the ways for tax increases and bailouts.
Who does not believe that plenty of money could be made available (to handle indigent dead properly) from recovered obvious waste and fraud in Cook County?
Jesus Christ! 300 bodies? My main question is: where did they put them all?
I've been inside of Seattle's Morgue, and LA County Coroners office...those places are huge...and the
maximum storage capacity at LA's morgue is only 150 tops..
300? They had to have them stacked like cord wood...and why did they have them like that?
A story is around that L.A.'s morgue is just as full.
fgh> Yeah. I heard that story too but Tony Villar isn't going to admit that's true.
They'll be sorry when the Zombie Apocalypse hits and those people suddenly sit up with a case of the munchies. That's a lot of Walking Dead to deal with in one place...
Will the Obama Administration sue the Catholic Church like they are sueing Arizona? Don't fix the problem tell those who are trying to help it's not their responsibility. Just one angry black lady's perspective!
Why did you have to mention you were black? What does ethnicity or race have to do with this article? And this was about city government, which Obama has nothing to do with! Sorry, just one angry white man's perspective.
I can top that, I'm Canadien.
Hold on
.......
Sorry, my beer was getting warm.
Now, what were we talking about?
The kindest thing we could do for the fine folks of Chicago and Cook County. Is to put both the politician's and the crooked folks in both of those governments on a ferry. Tow it out into the middle of lake Michigan, and scuttle it. After a certain age, people just don't want to change habits. Good or bad.
There are laws against polluting!
This is what happens when you slow the production of pink slime.
whats with this life time job thing...NO ONE should have a life time job guarantee no matter who they are. And with this backlog so to speak of 300 bodies, loved ones of someone why is this person still in charge..fire them
Didn't you ever have a toilet backup?
At least they didn't dump'em in the river.
At least not these 300. The lake would be better - it is deeper and the lampreys would clean up. Just remember to use proper weights. A well-bloated body has a lot of buoyancy.
Hey, that's 300 Democratic voters were talking about!
Not claimed ? cremate. SO simple. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It is what it is. Light a candle and say "good bye".
alumette,
So after a year or two of searching, you have located the final remains of your 15yo daughter who ran away on a whim, and was then murdered or overdosed on street drugs. How would you feel, greeted by your attitude, when you learn that your daughters ashes were deposited in a communal posthole with those of 15-20 others? Have you ever wondered why we preserve mass gravesites like Aushswitz? Because they are the only place with which surviving family can identify.
I get your comparison to Auschwitz, but there's a world of difference - and what could be built there, anyway? No one in their right mind would want to live there; that ground isn't sacred, it's cursed for eternity. As someone else stated, take the prints and a DNA sample, then cremate and store the cremated remains instead, there's no need to just dump them into a communal posthole - takes a heck of a lot less space to store a box of ashes than an intact (as much as they might be intact) body. Sorry if you didn't want them cremated but the reality is a body can't be maintained indefinitely.
The only one's I would honestly feel sorry for are the ones who went there to trying to find loved ones and were turned away; they didn't get the time or help they deserved and rightfully have a case against the coronor's office. As for that lifetime appointment - kidding me, right? NO job on Earth should be a lifetime appointment, that's insane! That's how crap like this happens and how corruption runs rampant!
Silly people, dead people don't vote. Oh wait, it's Chicago, they do...
Now that you mention it...it would be interesting to see how many of these "people" registered and voted for Obama after they were dead. It is his state. They could be drawing SS benefits and contributing to his campaign as we speak.
1 day harvest in Chicago. What're they going to do tomorrow?
How many of them are bammies relatives.
He doesn't even claim the live ones.
Maybe he can clean up Chicago when he's kicked back in January.
I doubt he's capable of even doing that.
FAILURE!
I can only repeat what others have said about the scale of unclaimed bodies in MANY areas, both urban and rural. The cost of even the simplest interment, without embalming or funeral service, is still around $1500 or more, plus the cost of the grave site and marker. This includes the pickup of the remains, the cheapest coffin, and provision for opening and closing the grave. Too many people are living homeless, potentially divorced from their families, sole survivng family member, or from families too poor to provide even this amount of money. Even private cremation will add about $800-900 to this cost while "saving" the cost of the gravesite and interment.
Many counties still have a poor fund to provide for the respectful burial of their residents. But these funds can be quickly overwhelmed by the costs of caring for those who died "just passing through". And often there are laws dictating how such remains can be buried, such as no cremation and clearly identifiable grave location.
Finally, regarding the issue of being rebuffed by the Medical Examiner's office. Most bureaucracies have procedures to follow. Just showing up and demanding a body, or to view a body, is not proper. Proving a close relationship to the deceased, providing other potential family contacts, and providing proof of your own identity are minimal. And generally there are forms to be filled out and filed. This is part of the service for which you pay a funeral home.