On November 8, 2018, while I was Chester County (PA)’s Coroner, we held a memorial ceremony, perhaps the first ever, for fifty-two unclaimed persons whose cremains had resided in the coroner’s office for years. I’ve written before about the sad issue of bodies left unclaimed, but on that day in 2018 we celebrated the lives…
Blog
Mental Health Risks Among Death Investigators
By Christina VandePol Mental health risks among death investigators are unavoidable, but have long been dismissed or downplayed by the mental health community, governments (their employers), and even medicolegal death investigators (MDIs) themselves. That may be changing. I’ve written elsewhere about the physical risks—musculoskeletal injuries from heavy lifting, infectious diseases, and chemical (drug) exposure—inherent in…
Deadly falls down stairs: accident or homicide?
Fatal staircase fall or an assault? Falls of all kinds are a leading cause of accidental death in the United States. But a staircase fall death investigation is in a category of its own, especially when there’s a “person of interest” at the scene. Was that fatal fall really an accident? Or something more sinister?…