- Aug 13, 2001
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Rats Eat Bodies in Coroner's Office
Tue Apr 9, 9:09 AM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A dozen unidentified corpses -- stored in an outdoor crypt in downtown Los Angeles for up to seven years while the city's coroner sought their relatives -- were mutilated by rats in recent months, a spokesman said on Monday.
But after the gruesome discovery (news - web sites) in February, pest control efforts were successful in eliminating the rodents, coroner's spokesman Craig Harvey said.
"We've exterminated quite a few rats. Others just ran out of town," Harvey said. The coroner's office also took steps to shore up the seals on the entrance to the crypt and has initiated regular checks to make sure the rodents do not return, Harvey said.
The rats were found in an external crypt that holds 61 John and Jane Does -- hard-to-identify, unclaimed bodies the coroner expects to store over the long term. Of those, a dozen were found to have been mutilated by rats, Harvey said.
An interior, shorter-term holding crypt that stores more than 300 bodies, he said, did not show signs of infestation.
Over the weekend local Univision Spanish-language station KMEX-TV reported that "hundreds of bodies" were decomposing at the downtown, county-run facility, and that some of the corpses had been eaten by rats.
In an interview, an anonymous source whose face and voice were masked, said the coroner's office has "documented" mutilation of corpses by rats and blamed the problem on negligence.
But Harvey said media reports that improper corpse storage led to the decomposition of bodies and the rodent infestation at the facility were "exaggerations."
"Most of the bodies we're talking about were decomposed when we took possession of them," Harvey said. "Or the relatives were unable to identify them or didn't come forward or refused to take responsibility for them or couldn't be located. That's why they can't be (positively) identified. We then place them in long-term storage and search missing-person reports every day."
Rats Eat Bodies in Coroner's Office
Tue Apr 9, 9:09 AM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A dozen unidentified corpses -- stored in an outdoor crypt in downtown Los Angeles for up to seven years while the city's coroner sought their relatives -- were mutilated by rats in recent months, a spokesman said on Monday.
But after the gruesome discovery (news - web sites) in February, pest control efforts were successful in eliminating the rodents, coroner's spokesman Craig Harvey said.
"We've exterminated quite a few rats. Others just ran out of town," Harvey said. The coroner's office also took steps to shore up the seals on the entrance to the crypt and has initiated regular checks to make sure the rodents do not return, Harvey said.
The rats were found in an external crypt that holds 61 John and Jane Does -- hard-to-identify, unclaimed bodies the coroner expects to store over the long term. Of those, a dozen were found to have been mutilated by rats, Harvey said.
An interior, shorter-term holding crypt that stores more than 300 bodies, he said, did not show signs of infestation.
Over the weekend local Univision Spanish-language station KMEX-TV reported that "hundreds of bodies" were decomposing at the downtown, county-run facility, and that some of the corpses had been eaten by rats.
In an interview, an anonymous source whose face and voice were masked, said the coroner's office has "documented" mutilation of corpses by rats and blamed the problem on negligence.
But Harvey said media reports that improper corpse storage led to the decomposition of bodies and the rodent infestation at the facility were "exaggerations."
"Most of the bodies we're talking about were decomposed when we took possession of them," Harvey said. "Or the relatives were unable to identify them or didn't come forward or refused to take responsibility for them or couldn't be located. That's why they can't be (positively) identified. We then place them in long-term storage and search missing-person reports every day."
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