Dealing with unclaimed and abandoned remains

BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — At the Terrace Lawn section of the Cloverdale Cemetery a donated crypt holds the cremains of nearly 80 deceased persons who were either unclaimed or abandoned. The remains of 24 more people will be added in the coming year.

"We decided that these individuals that had been forgotten in a sense deserved a ceremony," Ada County Coroner Dotti Owens said. "Everyone's human and regardless of what their past held or the reason they were abandoned or the reason that we there's no family no living family you know they deserve that."

Before a person's remains make it to the crypt the Ada County Coroner's Office works hard to find the legal next of kin. Hours of work go into finding a person's family.

"On scene at the property we'll actually pull photo frames off or photos off the wall and we'll look for names on the back cause that gives us at least a lead," Owens said. "So we use Facebook, we use Ancestry.com, we've got all different avenues."

The case is then turned over to the Treasurers Office to see if the deceased had enough in assets to pay for their cremation.

"If they don't have any funds, then what happens is it's denied through public administrator and then it goes into Indigent Services, to which Indigent will approve and pay for the cremation."

Then there are those that are abandoned and Owens says it's happening much more often than in previous years.

"In the last three weeks we've received quite a few abandons. I don't know why. I don't know why families are now more , you know they're okay with that for some reason," Owens said. "I don't know if it's torn relationships, I don't know a lot of the times when a family member abandons they don't give us the reason why they just back out and say we don't want anything to do with this or they just don't answer the phone anymore."

The family has the opportunity to apply for the county's Indigent Services if they're concerned about being able to pay. Owens says her office is happy to help with the paperwork. so they can still have their loved ones remains if they choose.

But if they don't the same process happens as if the person were unclaimed. Even those who may want to claim remains might not be able to unless a specific legal step is taken before death creating a Durable Medical Power of Attorney.

"We can have someone that's been a close friend for 25 years that offers to take care of the disposition and by state statute we can't allow that," Owens said. "We need to work on improving our state laws."

All of these cases can become a real burden for the Coroner's Office because while the applications are processed the bodies are stored at their morgue. Owens says a lot of the time their coolers are at capacity with 20 bodies.

"Our caseload is up, our suicide rates are up, our overdoses are up, we've had an influx of population which means with the population growth our numbers are going to increase and those are still people coming through that we need that space for," Owens said.

She says this also puts pressure on other families to get their arrangements in order.

"We try to mandate a 24 hour release for families which creates a hardship," Owens said. "Imagine losing your 15-year-old or your 25 year-old-son or daughter and having the coroners office call and say you know do you have a funeral home we need to get him or her released first thing in the morning."

The cremains in these cases are kept at the office for a year so that if any family does come to claim them they don't have to pay to open the crypt. The work to find family doesn't stop after that year.

The staff is constantly working to find family of new and decades old cases, updating their database and sharing the names of the unclaimed on NAMUS, The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

"If we can place someone with their family, I mean, I feel like as humans we need to do that,"Owens said. "That's work we need to continue. I don't care if we've had those cremains for three or four years."

In 2017 there were a total of 18 unclaimed and abandoned cases this year there has already been at least 19 all of which will likely end up right here.

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