An Arizona Morgue Grows Crowded

["Mad" Miles]

An Arizona Morgue Grows Crowded



Joshua Lott for The New York Times

Bodies are stored in a refrigerated area of the Pima County morgue, which is running out of space as the number of immigrants found dead in deserts around Tucson has soared.

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

Published: July 28, 2010




TUCSON — Dr. Bruce Parks unzips a white body bag on a steel gurney and gingerly lifts out a human skull and mandible, turning them over in his hands and examining the few teeth still in their sockets.


Enlarge This Image

Joshua Lott for The New York Times


Dr. Bruce Parks, the chief medical examiner for Pima County, looked over an unidentified skull.



The body bag, coated with dust, also contains a broken pelvis, a femur and a few smaller bones found in the desert in June, along with a pair of white sneakers.

“These are people who are probably not going to be identified,” said Dr. Parks, the chief medical examiner for Pima County. There are eight other body bags crowded on the gurney.

The Pima County morgue is running out of space as the number of Latin American immigrants found dead in the deserts around Tucson has soared this year during a heat wave.

The rise in deaths comes as Arizona is embroiled in a bitter legal battle over a new law intended to discourage illegal immigrants from settling here by making it a state crime for them to live or seek work.

But the law has not kept the immigrants from trying to cross hundreds of miles of desert on foot in record-breaking heat. The bodies of 57 border crossers have been brought in during July so far, putting it on track to be the worst month for such deaths in the last five years.

(Snip)

Rest of article

[pnicholson]

this is truly a sad and gruesome story but i am glad that it is being told.