ONCE FIREFIGHTERS had jimmied the door that July afternoon, the police squeezed into a beaten apartment groaning with possessions, a grotesque parody of the “lived-in” condition. Clearly, its occupant had been a hoarder.
The officers from the 115th Precinct called the medical examiner’s office, which involves itself in suspicious deaths and unidentified bodies, and a medical legal investigator arrived. His task was to rule out foul play and look for evidence that could help locate the next of kin and identify the body. In short order, it was clear that nothing criminal had taken place (no sign of forced entry, bullet wounds, congealed blood).
A Fire Department paramedic made the obvious pronouncement that the man was dead; even a skeleton …show more content…
Detectives grabbed some names and phone numbers from the apartment, called them and got nothing: The man had no wife, no siblings. The police estimate that they reach kin 85 percent of the time. They struck out with George Bell.
At the Queens morgue, identification personnel got started. Something like 90 percent of the corpses arriving at city morgues are identified by relatives or friends after they are shown photographs of the body. Most remains depart for burial within a few days. For the rest, it gets complicated.
The easiest resolution is furnished by fingerprints; otherwise by dental and medical records or, as a last resort, by DNA. The medical examiner can also do a so-called contextual ID; when all elements are considered, none of which by themselves bring certainty, a sort of circumstantial identification can be …show more content…
Its austere quarters are adjacent to Surrogate’s Court, familiarly known as widows and orphans court, where wills are probated and battles are often waged over the dead.
Each county in New York City has a public administrator to manage estates when there is no one else to do so, most commonly when there is no will or no known heirs.
Public administrators tend to rouse attention only when complaints flare over their competence or their fees or their tendency to oversee dens of political patronage. Or when they run afoul of the law. Last year, a former longtime counsel to the Bronx County public administrator pleaded guilty to grand larceny, while a bookkeeper for the Kings County public administrator was sentenced to a prison term for stealing from the dead.
Recent audits by the city’s comptroller found disturbing dysfunction at both of those offices, which the occupants said had been overstated. The most recent audit of the Queens office, in 2012, raised no significant
The officers from the 115th Precinct called the medical examiner’s office, which involves itself in suspicious deaths and unidentified bodies, and a medical legal investigator arrived. His task was to rule out foul play and look for evidence that could help locate the next of kin and identify the body. In short order, it was clear that nothing criminal had taken place (no sign of forced entry, bullet wounds, congealed blood).
A Fire Department paramedic made the obvious pronouncement that the man was dead; even a skeleton …show more content…
Detectives grabbed some names and phone numbers from the apartment, called them and got nothing: The man had no wife, no siblings. The police estimate that they reach kin 85 percent of the time. They struck out with George Bell.
At the Queens morgue, identification personnel got started. Something like 90 percent of the corpses arriving at city morgues are identified by relatives or friends after they are shown photographs of the body. Most remains depart for burial within a few days. For the rest, it gets complicated.
The easiest resolution is furnished by fingerprints; otherwise by dental and medical records or, as a last resort, by DNA. The medical examiner can also do a so-called contextual ID; when all elements are considered, none of which by themselves bring certainty, a sort of circumstantial identification can be …show more content…
Its austere quarters are adjacent to Surrogate’s Court, familiarly known as widows and orphans court, where wills are probated and battles are often waged over the dead.
Each county in New York City has a public administrator to manage estates when there is no one else to do so, most commonly when there is no will or no known heirs.
Public administrators tend to rouse attention only when complaints flare over their competence or their fees or their tendency to oversee dens of political patronage. Or when they run afoul of the law. Last year, a former longtime counsel to the Bronx County public administrator pleaded guilty to grand larceny, while a bookkeeper for the Kings County public administrator was sentenced to a prison term for stealing from the dead.
Recent audits by the city’s comptroller found disturbing dysfunction at both of those offices, which the occupants said had been overstated. The most recent audit of the Queens office, in 2012, raised no significant