Resting Place: County morgue, autopsy techs a step toward medical examiner's office

Dr. Norma Jean Farley never knows what to expect when she shows up for work each day in a small office hidden in the back of a McAllen funeral home.

As Hidalgo County’s chief forensic pathologist, Farley could be called on by local law enforcement agencies to scour a homicide victim’s body for evidence, find identifying characteristics on a John Doe or scrape away tissue samples to store for a case. In addition to conducting all autopsies for unnatural, unexpected and suspicious deaths, Farley could spend hours testifying in court on what she found in an investigation.

“I testify a lot more than I’ve had to do before, but I’m the only one here,” said Farley, who worked in Bexar and Cameron counties before signing on with Hidalgo County in 2007 to perform all of its autopsies. “I strike it up to (the fact that) I’ve never been in a place where I’m the only one doing the homicides.”

But Farley soon won’t be the only one in the county conducting her macabre work.

Hidalgo County government will begin hiring autopsy technicians under Farley’s supervision to perform routine death investigations, take toxicology samples and prepare autopsy reports. Unlike Farley, who conducts autopsies under a contract with the county, the two positions approved by commissioners last month will be the first county employees to provide post-mortem services.

The decision to hire the autopsy technicians comes as the county prepares to open a morgue in the old juvenile justice center that was renovated to fill the new need. Expected to open by January, the expansive facility — complete with a decomposition room, walk-in coolers and an autopsy room — will provide more room for toxicology and body storage than the tiny office at Ceballos Funeral Home, where county autopsies currently are conducted.

District Attorney Rene Guerra said opening the county morgue and hiring the autopsy technicians will lay the groundwork for eventually opening a county medical examiner’s office.

“Where a medical examiner’s office will help is we can have more bodies examined for less cost,” he said. “It will be an expensive undertaking for any county to create one, but right now we’re trying to take baby steps to make that a reality.”

Counties are required to open a medical examiner’s office under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedures once their population reaches 1 million residents. In counties that fall below that requirement, the justices of the peace serve as the coroner in signing death certificates and taking custody of bodies at car accidents, homicides and unattended deaths.

With fewer than 800,000 residents identified by the 2010 census, Hidalgo County doesn’t yet have the population to mandate an office, but nearby Webb and Nueces counties established medical examiner’s offices before hitting the threshold to save on autopsy costs.

Farley provides “invaluable work” for the criminal justice system through her contract with the county by performing forensic autopsies and providing impartial court testimony on the cause and manner of death, Guerra said. Rural counties without a medical examiner’s office often choose to ship bodies needing autopsies to large offices in metro areas that charge at least $2,000 for the service.

Farley, a gubernatorial appointee to the Texas Forensic Science Commission, provides autopsy services locally, saving the cost of shipping the bodies elsewhere. But Hidalgo County still spent $650,000 on autopsy services last year, a cost that increased to $753,000 this year with the addition of the full-time autopsy technicians.

Still, those costs are far less than what it would cost to open a medical examiner’s office staffed with technicians, crime scene investigators and, potentially, multiple pathologists.

El Paso County, a fellow border county with a population similar to Hidalgo County, spent $1.4 million on operating a medical examiner’s office, while Bexar County’s expenses topped $4 million, according to the Texas Association of Counties. Those costs could be shared among other Rio Grande Valley counties if they opted to create a regional medical examiner’s district.

While it’s likely cost-prohibitive at this point, a medical examiner’s office would allow the justices of the peace to direct their attention toward their duties as a judge, said Bobby Contreras, a Precinct 2 justice of the peace. He was called to 124 inquests last year by police agencies. Those could occur late at night while he was trying to sleep or during the day when he was administering court.

“We’re not qualified medical examiners. All we’re doing is verifying there is no foul play,” Contreras said. “It would give us more time to concentrate on our regular work that we have here” in the court.

Taking an incremental approach toward a medical examiner’s office by hiring the autopsy technicians will help the county avoid having to create all of the positions at once when it hits 1 million residents, said Roy Cazares, the personnel director for the Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office. Building the morgue also can save the county the cost of storing bodies at the funeral home and allow them to keep them for as long as needed.

Farley said she prefers to keep bodies of illegal immigrants who die crossing the border for at least a month, allowing foreign consulates enough time to check their records and identify possible kin before the unidentified bodies are given a pauper’s burial. Farley, who handles about 270 cases annually for the county, said she is supportive of a move to a medical examiner’s office as long as it provides crime scene investigators and other staff needed to deal with the additional responsibilities of a medical examiner.

But she said an incremental step toward the county morgue and the autopsy technicians will centralize her operations — her actual offices are kept away from the cramped space at the funeral home — and allow for the extra storage needed.

“The county is moving in the right direction by having a (morgue) that can handle it and by getting their own techs to aid with the autopsies,” said Farley, who could be called on to lead a medical examiner’s office once it is established. “Once we reach that million (population mark), then our workload will increase quite a bit.”

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Jared Janes covers Hidalgo County government, Edinburg and legislative issues for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4424.