Coroner Stories

I suppose everyone at one time or another has learned of something that in retrospect they realized they could have gone their whole life without knowing. For some, it may have been an embarrassing family secret they were privy to. For others, calculus—or in my case, basic algebra—may be the one thing they considered to be useless knowledge.

Over the years, this job has provided countless opportunities for me to wish I had remained ignorant of information that I had been presented with. Technically, these details were knowledge, but not in the sense that they were of any practical use. The most recent example of one of these opportunities occurred just last week.

I spent the better part of an afternoon reading through police reports, child welfare reports, and witness statements pertaining to the latest child death I had to investigate. Without going into specifics, the information contained therein chronicled a pattern of abuse that would have lead any reasonable person to conclude that death for this particular child was inevitable.

Granted, all deaths are inevitable, but most of us are afforded the opportunity to live long enough that we are able to comprehend the concept of mortality. This particular child barely lived long enough to comprehend the concept of sitting up, but spent the last several months of its life in a vegetative state that prohibited it from doing so.

After reading the particulars of the case, I couldn’t help but wonder, “What good did that do me?” Sure, I was able to determine the circumstances surrounding the critical injury that the child received. But beyond that, knowing detailed information about the day-to-day life of the child, the way it was treated, and the way the parents acted was of little use to me.

When I first started investigating deaths, having special knowledge of restricted details surrounding a case was one of the more enjoyable aspects of this job. Family and friends were eager to know what they hadn’t seen on the news or read in the papers. There have even been times when this knowledge has been downright amusing. To this day, there is nothing better than watching a reporter on the news give details that aren’t even close to what really happened, or to watch them try and create a story out of the scant details that the police spokesperson has provided.

Most everyone has watched (or avoided watching) news stories about some heinous act committed against a child on the evening news. These segments are usually limited to 45 seconds, so the reporters can only hit the high points and seem eager to use shocking keywords like “sodomy” and “child pornography” that are more likely to attract an audience. These generic terms are easily understood by the general public and elicit comments from viewers such as, “How could someone do that to a child?” or “I hope they rot in jail!”

Regardless of the impact such stories have on us initially the truth is that unless the story is particularly shocking, we forget it in no time at all. Even producers seem to move on when the next big story comes along. I’ve often wondered how much more of an impact these stories would have on viewers if the reporters were to pass on the specific details of the case. Maybe passing on such details to the general public would educate those among us that don’t realize grabbing a baby by its ankles and swinging it against the bedroom wall like a baseball bat is an inappropriate form of punishment. Those people are out there, and they are not all “drugged up” at the time of the incident. Some are just that stupid.

I find myself wondering, “What have I gained from this knowledge?” Did I develop a more loathsome opinion of those that resort to violence against defenseless children rather than use basic coping skills I used to assume were innate characteristics of being human? Not really. That bar has been set pretty low for quite some time.

I wonder if the child had any awareness that it was in a vegetative state. I wonder if the child was sad about being in such a state or simply relieved to have been out of an abusive environment no matter what the conditions. I wonder these things, and others, but not for very long. The sad fact is that, no matter how in-depth my knowledge of this case may be, it is only a matter of time before it too slips away into the mental abyss of details of the hundreds of cases that came before it.