Along the U.S.-Mexico border, a dilemma of the dead

Carolyn Hileman* | September 28, 2007

By SUSAN CARROLL

LAREDO — The yellowing skeletons are stored in filing boxes in the hallway of the old prison outside Laredo. Under fluorescent lights, the dead are stacked in a bay of metal lockers, two high and three across. The walk-in cooler across the hall is larger, but all of the tables are full, too.

At the makeshift morgue, Dr. Corinne Stern, the Webb County medical examiner, started storing bodies on rolling gurneys in the walk-in refrigerator when she ran out of space. Less than ideal, she thought, but temporary. It started with just one or two bodies, but by late last week, there were at least half a dozen.

“We try to make space the best we can,” she said, “but we are completely full.”

Soon, though, at least one spot will open up. Stern is preparing to release for burial a suspected illegal immigrant whose partially mummified, naked body was pulled from the Rio Grande months ago.

Like many medical examiners and county officials along the U.S.-Mexico border, Stern faces a complicated and delicate problem — what to do with dozens of John Does, many believed to be illegal immigrants, who end up in county coolers and eventually in anonymous pauper’s graves, all at the expense of local taxpayers.

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