Episode 25 - The Compassion of Coroners: Chief Deputy Coroner Alfie Ballew on Dignity and Service

Transcript

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Day two at the corner's office.

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I was like I love it here.

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It was the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen in my career for the final disposition of 173 decedents that had gone and claimed.

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I said I don't know what this is about, but I know now what that is about.

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I know what that looks like.

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It's not good when I hear them say they're dead.

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Okay, yes, they are.

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However, they still deserve dignity.

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I take care of the dead, but I serve the survivors.

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Welcome to Homeward Indie, a bi-weekly conversation where we meet the people working to end homelessness in Indianapolis and hear their stories.

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I'm Elliott Zans.

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And I'm Steve Barnhart.

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Welcome listeners to the 25th episode of Homeward Indie.

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Today's guest is Alfie Baloo.

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She is the Chief Deputy Coroner at the Marion County Coroner's Office.

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We are so thankful that she took the time to share with us.

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This is a friendly reminder that the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they belong to or represent.

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Alfie, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us and inform our listeners about what the Marion County Coroner's Office does, particularly as it relates to the homeless here in Indianapolis, because that's the theme, of course, of this podcast.

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Well, thank you for having me.

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I'm glad to share information.

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I love education and I love learning too.

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I think I can learn a lot from what the podcast has to offer as well.

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Very good.

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A few episodes back we had Linda Zanacki on from he Knows your Name.

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She spoke very highly of what your office is doing, and I don't know if office is the right term or not.

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That is correct, Okay, and we were in the same place earlier.

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We know because I first became aware of the work in the connection of the coroner's office with the plight of the homeless at a cemetery.

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Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about how that all came about?

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Just to kind of kick things off here.

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Yeah.

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So you know, for years I've been with the coroner's office for 26 years and for years early on, you know we always had those that were unclaimed, meaning that there was no family or they were perhaps disconnected from their families and families did not want to take care of the final disposition for folks once they passed.

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And so ultimately we as the coroner's office, part of our responsibility is to take care of the final disposition of those that are unclaimed, and we have the authorization to cremate them If they're.

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As long as they're not a veteran, we can cremate decedents who are in our care and custody, because obviously we can't hold them forever.

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And we grew to have a significant number each year.

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From 2006 on, those numbers of unclaimed continue to increase.

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What we found was, you know, there were a lot of people that were disconnected from families.

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A lot of it was financial, where some families did not have the financial ability to take care of the final disposition, and when I say final disposition, that means going through the process of burial or cremation.

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Yes.

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And we found more and more families that were literally releasing their rights over to the coroner's office for the coroner's office to take care of the cremation.

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So, even though you would find the next of kin or whoever it might be, they were just like can't do anything.

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Yes, cannot do anything.

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We even went so far as to say, okay, well, we know that the services that we provide in terms of the cremation, you just pay us back at cost for what those those dollar amounts are.

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So it could have been anywhere between $250 and $500, depending on when it was, and families still did not come forward to claim the cremains of their loved ones, and that, again, could be based on a variety of things.

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Yes, and it was never our position to judge the family or next of kin who came back or those who did not.

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Ultimately, we were left with over a hundred cremains that were in our care and custody and we started looking at what are our abilities to take care of.

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What do we do with these cremains?

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Do we bury them?

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So the law actually says in Indiana that you can scatter cremains in any public, on any public land or any public waterway, and so, talking to our city attorneys, they were like please don't do it in the waterways.

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Okay.

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And so we started to try to just figure out what are we going to do with all these cremains, because they're literally six by six inch boxes that on either side that we were storing more and more and we were literally running out of space to store the number of cremains that we had.

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And then we had an opportunity where we were going to be moving and I said we are not moving these cremains with us, Okay.

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And I started talking to Linda.

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You know she's always worked with our office to take care of the babies who had gone unclaimed and families could not take care of things, or we could not find families or the babies were abandoned.

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And so we started talking about the number of cremains that we had.

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Now, media had done stories on it before.

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They never offered any solutions, and so we really started to think about what are the solutions for what we need to do next.

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And talking to Linda, she's like you know, why can't we have a service for them?

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And you know we started having deeper conversations what does a service look like for over a hundred cremains?

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How do we handle that?

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And we started making calls to cemeteries to find out okay, is this a burial?

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Would this be some other thing that we would do?

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Will we put all of the cremains in a casket?

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Will we dump all the cremains?

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And so many questions, so many questions.

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I am in the field of death investigation and not cemetery servicing, right, so I had a lot of questions.

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Ultimately, in talking to the funeral home, they identified that they had a place called an osher wary, and what I learned was that an osher wary is a place where you can dump the cremains and it goes and sort of into this underground tunnel place and so several cemeteries have osher wary.

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Now there is a cost associated with dumping or emptying the cremains in an osher wary, and I said, well, we have over a hundred of them that need to be put into an osher wary.

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And so in talking to Linda again, we started brainstorming like what could we do?

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And you know Linda's all about giving dignity and having a service to really memorialize deceitants.

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Yes.

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And you know, of course, her brain started running in circles about we've got to have a service for them.

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And I said, well, Linda, I don't know what a service would look like if we're just putting those cremains in an osher wary.

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And she then just took it from there and started doing some research and working with the cemetery and identified a place that's beautiful at Oakland Cemetery and we started looking at, okay, well, how many do we have?

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And then what are their names?

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She's all about names.

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Yes.

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They need to have names, and so we just started on that, on that journey, very early on, and she had a timeline that she wanted to meet, and it was just simply so that we could accomplish this goal of getting the decedents that were unclaimed, that were cremated within our care and custody, to this osher wary, with a final disposition, with a memorial service that identifies who they are, to know that he knows your name.

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Yes and it was so passionate about.

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You know what I saw, with just her passion.

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Now I work in this industry and I love you know the field of death investigation and Understanding the who, what, where, when and and how.

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But she took it to a different level, to take it all the way to the end of the final disposition.

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Yes and so Ultimately she, you know, took the lead and she did a beautiful service With such organization that I could not have dreamed of.

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The organization, the beauty of just the bags that the cremains were put in.

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So typically Creep when a deceitness cremated, they're placed in a just a regular plastic bag and then placed in a box.

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Right, she had this beautiful idea of having the cremains placed in these beautiful variety of color velvet bags and it was the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen in my career.

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For the final disposition of 173 Deceitants that had gone and claimed and that was about two years ago.

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Is that correct?

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Yes, yes, and.

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And the service was very organized.

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The way in which she gave such dignity To those, those deceitants that were not claimed, was just amazing.

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It was something that I go back.

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I I literally go back and look at some of the video now like, wow, we did that yes because we searched to see well what?

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What do other offices do?

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What do they do with?

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those just wondering about that.

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No one had a solution.

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I call some of the bigger offices in other states.

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They really didn't have a solution as to what they do and so they didn't have a plan and so they did what we had done for many years it's just keep the cremains in their facility and then perhaps family comes forward, and so no one had an answer.

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In this process just kind of got us on a on a roll now that After that we identified we're gonna do this every year.

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So any given year we could have up to 25 to 30 unclaimed deceitants in our possession just because of the variety of circumstances, marion County just for Marion County?

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Yes, and so we identified that we know we're gonna have that many, so we're going to have a service for them every year.

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So it's now in our policy that we, when we have cremains every spring, we're gonna have a service for those that are unclaimed and and put the cremains in the ground or in an osher wary, whichever we decide, because both options are available and that's what we're gonna do.

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So when, when you were involved and you met Linda it was, we had gathered all of the decedents and we put them actually in a Box to bury them.

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So we kept their cremains in the actual bag that they were in, but we just put the little black box in a casket and then put the casket in the ground and then we can identify.

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If anyone comes forward at any time, we can identify where that decedent is.

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So you say you're.

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We have that in our record at the office.

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Your loved one is at this particular grave marker at Floral Park Cemetery.

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And so that was just something that that we had done that the first time, doing it the way that you saw us, but it was still quite beautiful.

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It was still giving such dignity To those who had gone unclaimed, and we even invited families to come.

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If they did not want to take the cremains with them or did not want to come to our office and pick up, pick up the cremains, we wouldn't inform families.

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You can come and have the service with us, just just come.

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You don't have to tell us who you are.

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If you want to memorialize your loved one, just show up.

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You can't.

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I don't know how many families were potentially there where it was their loved one that was in, you know, in that Casket yes that was going to be placed in the ground at that, at that spot.

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It's interesting to me that as you describe this process between you and Linda, you give a lot of credit to Linda.

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But when I talked to Linda, she gave a lot of credit to the coroner's office.

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In fact she even went as far as to say I call the coroner's office public servants with wings.

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She was just so Amazed by your response to this problem and Taking it on and putting so much work and effort into this.

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You didn't have to do that.

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No, but you know what?

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It was?

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A lot of work.

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Okay, because there are processes that you know when you go about doing that, when you're moving cremains from one place to another place, and then it's going to be the final disposition.

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You're talking a lot of paperwork that has to be done, a lot of documentation within our case management system to identify Every single decedent that was moved and that they're moved to this cemetery, and you know this on this day and all of those things.

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And it sounds like it set off a whole new round of trying to make notifications.

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Yes, Well that's got to be time consuming.

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Yeah, because we actually published all of the names on all of our social media.

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We published them in the newspaper just to give anyone an opportunity that may want to come back and collect the cremains from us of their loved ones, that opportunity to do that.

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So, yes, it was another round of a notification Opportunity to a family that may want to come forward.

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And we did have some people that said, oh, I now have the funds to come and pick up the cremates, and I will do that.

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Yes, so where we may have started off with 60 or so, some five or ten families came to pick up, you know, their loved ones once they knew that, okay, we're moving them to the final disposition.

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Now I'm so yes, it was a process and it took.

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At least we started planning for Probably about three months prior to the actual event, just to make sure that we could get everything in place and that we could say we did.

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We made Every effort to contact any family that we could find or to notify a family that we were moving forward with the final disposition, even though by law we did not have to do that.

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Yes but for me it was important to just give a family just that one last opportunity, because you just don't know people's circumstances when they're dealing with the death of a loved one.

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Rather we found the family or not, maybe family comes and is searching or looking for their loved one.

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Whatever the reason, I just feel like we just needed to do that one last thing.

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So it did take a lot of time, but it was important to do.

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But it was also important to move the process along, and so that's what this.

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I asked a couple of the staff To assist me with that, okay, and they weren't reluctant.

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They were just like, oh, another thing to do, because I've all these projects in my head, right, but they were just like, okay, another thing to do.

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But because we love you, they did it and it is now a part of, like I said, it's a part of our procedures.

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Now it is something that every spring we know that we will do and, as an office, that I was surprised by the number of staff that came all my word both right.

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I thought here's the invitation guys, here's what we're doing.

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There's no obligation for you to show up.

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But when I tell you the staff that were not even on duty that day, they came on their off day to pay their last respects for their cases.

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That was my very first impression as I came to the cemetery.

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What are all these white cars?

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Better lined up?

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I was like that too, they all showed up.

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Like crazy, and they all had the little symbol on them.

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Yeah, marion County Corners office.

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It just a surprise.

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As you are, like I said, I don't make it a mandatory thing Because it may not be in everyone's heart.

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I open the invitation up and I say you can come if you want to, but you don't have to.

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And I was just a surprise.

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I mean, we're talking people, my night shift people, night shift deputies, who work nights, who they do not wake up during the day Except for maybe to go to the restroom right, Okay and they showed up and they, you know, lay the roses.

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For us be the middle of the night.

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Yes, yes, exactly.

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So I was surprised, I was honored.

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It really, you know, really put a big place in my heart for the staff that I know, of Everyone that I know of who participated in any way.

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That was the thing that I think made the biggest impression on people.

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Oh wow.

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And it's interesting that you say that that and I can't remember how you put that it's people.

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These were individuals that your employees had a connection with yes, yes, yes, and they try to find family and they try to have someone come and claim them.

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They put a lot of effort and work into finding family and even when they found family they did not understand sometimes why families would not take care of the final disposition.

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But they have grown now, as they have grown in their work to understand there are disconnections Within families and within relationships, that they're better understanding why people won't move in that direction.

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Or even dealing with grief alone, right.

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So they're understanding that better.

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But then they then have that connection to that decedent.

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You know, they take those decedents on as part of, as part of them and a part of their work, a part of their, their life.

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It's hard to, you know, think about that, but Day after day this is what they do and they really fill those that connection to the, the cases, the decedents that they're investigating.

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And I've got to think, though, you've established a culture that allows that to happen.

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Absolutely, absolutely.

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You know I oftentimes will, you know, talk to the staff to help them understand.

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So my deputy corners Are much younger and a lot of them I noticed a lot of them were young people.

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Yeah, a lot of them went from interns within our office to deputy corners straight out of college, and I gave them that opportunity.

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But along the way, I love teaching, so I have an opportunity to teach them Certain things about career, about being a professional, about just human nature, and I love the opportunity that they allow me to do that with them.

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They're like my kids and so they have listened.

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I see that they have listened.

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It's just simply to show Compassion for the people that we serve, no matter the circumstance.

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Yeah, that that is powerful.

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I'm inspired by your Drive to achieve that.

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I'm curious you you spoke a little bit about maybe some of your staff kind of Raise their eyebrows a little bit when you brought this up.

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Did you experience?

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Any other pushback, whether that be from other government agencies or None other none, and I thought that I would okay.

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I could imagine that I really thought that I would from you know, for whatever reason, people just have a different place in their mind about Deceitants, right, and you know I've heard this before and I will tell people it's a different place In their mind.

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About deceitants, right, and you know, I've heard this before and I will tell people when I hear them say they're dead.

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Okay, yes, they are.

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However, they still deserve dignity.

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I've heard people say that they have, you know, just this concept of well, they're, they're gone now.

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So why should we give you money for your agency to do any kind of work?

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Why, you know, I've had to fight for so long for our agency to just have the appropriate level of funding to, you know, investigate debts and to provide service for the families that we serve and for Dignity for the deceitant.

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So I thought that there was going to be pushed back, but to my surprise I mean the council, the city, county council when I approached and said this is what we're doing, um, they were like, oh my gosh, like who does this?

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And one of the council members actually had a friend that was unclaimed and they didn't know until they saw the name.

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He didn't know, he and his classmates didn't know until they saw the name and they're like that's our friend.

00:23:07.388 --> 00:23:13.220
But by the time they were able to kind of take care of things we were already on the path of.

00:23:13.220 --> 00:23:17.628
We had done all the paperwork and all of that and I said but please attend the service.

00:23:17.628 --> 00:23:32.871
And many of their, of the classmates of the decedent, did, and so they came to the service, they listened for his name and now they can go to a place where there's a headstone with their classmates name on it and just to know that we gave dignity to their classmate.

00:23:32.871 --> 00:23:43.367
That council member, dan Boots, was so grateful and he just I just saw him recently and he's like now I see there are other offices doing what you did.

00:23:43.759 --> 00:23:46.088
That's what I was gonna, one of the questions I had for you.

00:23:46.088 --> 00:23:47.486
Are there now others?

00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:57.824
Yeah, because on Linda's website there is a place for people to go and learn more about doing this.

00:23:57.824 --> 00:24:00.247
So what she has done is opened it up.

00:24:00.247 --> 00:24:15.963
So now that I know for sure, the Hamilton County Corners office in Indiana is doing that and supposedly there's some other offices across the nation who are going to Linda's website and they're seeing what was done and they're following that.

00:24:15.963 --> 00:24:29.527
I haven't had any particular offices reach out to me, but that's one of the things that, as I go on the circuit, I do some speaking at various corners, conferences and medical examiner conferences and sharing information.

00:24:29.527 --> 00:24:37.827
That's one of the things that I talk about is what we did, this process that we went through, and so again, no pushback.

00:24:37.827 --> 00:24:39.445
I thought there was going to be.

00:24:40.019 --> 00:24:41.365
There was absolutely none.

00:24:41.365 --> 00:24:45.267
In fact, more people are talking about it and we want to normalize this right.

00:24:45.267 --> 00:24:50.025
This is something that needs to be discussed and talked about, and Linda says the same thing.

00:24:50.025 --> 00:24:52.366
Like we need to have these conversations.

00:24:52.366 --> 00:24:55.626
What is going to happen to my loved one?

00:24:55.827 --> 00:24:56.229
when they die.

00:24:57.779 --> 00:24:59.967
How are we going to handle that final disposition?

00:24:59.967 --> 00:25:07.185
And so having those conversations is critical, but people are afraid, like who wants to talk about that?

00:25:07.185 --> 00:25:09.386
Well, I talk about it every day, right?

00:25:09.660 --> 00:25:20.744
But, to have that conversation with someone that you love and you know that you get that infliction of a little bit of pain when you talk about like you're going to die and so what next?

00:25:20.744 --> 00:25:21.824
What happens next?

00:25:21.824 --> 00:25:27.583
So I'm just glad to have been a part of having the conversation.

00:25:27.583 --> 00:25:37.423
So I'm hoping that more offices will begin to do more of that, even if it's not as extensive as what Linda and I did as a collaboration.

00:25:37.423 --> 00:25:45.148
There are cemeteries, I'm sure, across the nation that will offer some services at low or no cost.

00:25:45.148 --> 00:25:51.327
It's got to be the medical examiner at corners offices that ask for the funding to support that.

00:25:51.327 --> 00:25:57.108
It has to be written into the budget to give dignity in that final disposition process.

00:25:57.108 --> 00:26:00.769
So it's part of what we do, right.

00:26:01.240 --> 00:26:17.951
You know, as I was thinking about that you were talking about, there needs to be the conversation that's that you were referring to, at a personal family, at a friend level, but the conversation needs to happen as a society level too.

00:26:17.951 --> 00:26:36.510
That's one thing I'm really learning doing this podcast with those who live very close to this segment of our society that can't lock a door at night and feel safe or they can't turn the heat up to stay warm.

00:26:36.510 --> 00:26:37.984
They are neighbors too.

00:26:37.984 --> 00:26:40.306
They just don't have a house.

00:26:40.460 --> 00:26:44.666
That's right, as you care for the least of these.

00:26:44.666 --> 00:26:57.106
That's probably the biggest reflection on who we are as individuals, and I see you doing that, so I'm very, very thankful.

00:26:57.669 --> 00:27:00.607
Oh, thank you, it just To be a member of this county.

00:27:00.607 --> 00:27:16.464
Yeah, you know, I always say no matter what the circumstance, we cannot judge people based on what they're going through or what they've been through you know, cause you never know when you might fall into that circumstance.

00:27:16.505 --> 00:27:26.229
Exactly None of us are immune to a medical crisis a family break up, you name it.

00:27:26.229 --> 00:27:38.490
Oh, yeah, oh yeah, and that's something I'm really learning and doing this podcast and talking with the folks that are out working with our homeless neighbors.

00:27:38.490 --> 00:27:46.009
We've got some stereotypes as a society that we need to undo, oh yeah.

00:27:46.009 --> 00:27:47.323
Because it's not accurate.

00:27:48.205 --> 00:27:48.728
You know what?

00:27:48.728 --> 00:27:50.727
And I'm just now learning.

00:27:50.727 --> 00:28:06.208
So, being in this industry for over 26 years, I'm learning more and I'm seeing more people who are unhoused and who do not have shelter, who do not have a place to go.

00:28:06.208 --> 00:28:30.788
That number has grown significantly since I've been working in this field of just death investigation, right, so we had our numbers of those that did not have shelter, those who were unhoused, those who had unstable housing, and now I'm on this new journey of trying to find out, or trying to work into our numbers.

00:28:32.019 --> 00:28:32.884
What does that look like?

00:28:32.884 --> 00:28:50.990
Because, personally, I can admit I don't think we've kept accurate numbers and we did not, certainly did not reflect the actual number of those who actually were homeless, who were, and we did share the information.

00:28:50.990 --> 00:28:55.888
So I'm all about data, but if people don't know, what can they do?

00:28:55.888 --> 00:28:59.707
They don't know, you don't know what you don't know, and then you don't know what to do with what you don't know.

00:28:59.707 --> 00:29:02.627
So now I'm on this journey my staff.

00:29:02.627 --> 00:29:08.450
Again, it's like, excuse me, ma'am, you got another project in mind.

00:29:08.450 --> 00:29:24.030
One more thing, but it's so important because if people don't know about things, then that's when the ignorance sets in, right, that's when people don't understand how to respond to those that are unhoused or unsheltered.

00:29:24.559 --> 00:29:45.827
So, in looking at our numbers and what's going in our annual report this year, which we hope we can capture accurately and it may take us a couple of years to get that more accurate is those that are dealing with unstable housing, as well as those who are unhoused and those who are homeless and perhaps why.

00:29:45.827 --> 00:29:58.229
You know, part of what we do is to investigate deaths, and if a person is homeless or has unstable housing, it's our job to ask the question why right?

00:29:58.229 --> 00:30:02.028
So for me, as an investigator, I'm nosy.

00:30:02.028 --> 00:30:05.688
I've been told I'm nosy since I was five years old.

00:30:06.599 --> 00:30:30.333
My grandmother first told me that, and look at me now, grandma, I can ask all the questions that I wanna ask right and I get paid for it, and one of the things that I started realizing recently was we need to understand why what is happening in our society that is driving people to where they are.

00:30:30.759 --> 00:30:34.230
And we can get some of those answers just by asking questions.

00:30:34.230 --> 00:30:38.545
So rather we connect with a family member or we look at their history.

00:30:38.545 --> 00:30:45.067
A lot of it relates to mental health issues, a lot of it relates to substance abuse.

00:30:45.067 --> 00:30:54.347
A lot of it just relates to you know, when we're talking to people in the camps, what do they know about this person?

00:30:54.347 --> 00:30:56.366
Cause we ask them questions but what do?

00:30:56.366 --> 00:30:56.709
They know?

00:30:56.709 --> 00:30:57.624
What can they tell us?

00:30:58.119 --> 00:31:06.365
And how can that shape the way that our society then addresses this information that we now have from a different perspective?

00:31:06.365 --> 00:31:10.403
Yes, it's at death, but sometimes that's the best information that you get.

00:31:10.403 --> 00:31:28.174
You know it's more available because when we connect with a family who has a loved one that dies, that has been unhoused or who has been homeless, oh, they give us a lot of information, and sometimes it's twofold, right.

00:31:28.174 --> 00:31:31.265
So sometimes it's I never had a relationship with that person.

00:31:31.265 --> 00:31:33.202
I never wanted a relationship with that person.

00:31:33.202 --> 00:31:36.104
They were a terrible, terrible person, for whatever reason.

00:31:36.454 --> 00:31:42.946
And then on the other hand, you get the families that are like I really knew and searched for my loved one.

00:31:42.946 --> 00:32:05.347
They didn't want to have that relationship because of mental health issues and substance abuse issues and all of those things that those families can recall, and so that's valuable information that we can take to those that are actively living in those conditions and perhaps figure out a way to address it, to provide some resources.

00:32:05.855 --> 00:32:12.449
And take it to the people who are creating the policies that so greatly affect.

00:32:12.449 --> 00:32:30.154
With what you're saying there and that information I mean what you're saying in some respects totally mirrors what I hear from continuum of care agency people, and that is we need information from these people to really understand what's going on.

00:32:30.154 --> 00:32:37.442
So I can't help but think they're caring for them in life, you're caring for them in death.

00:32:37.442 --> 00:32:44.929
There needs to be a marriage with all that information, because it all together tells the story.

00:32:45.194 --> 00:32:57.390
Yes, and I can admit our office has not been the best at gathering good information and capturing that and putting that out there or sharing that data.

00:32:57.596 --> 00:32:57.856
Yes.

00:32:58.459 --> 00:33:03.335
And so one of the things that we're really trying to do is, you know, trying to share more data.

00:33:03.335 --> 00:33:30.521
Increase our capability and technology innovations to share data with people who are that we from information that we collected death, to give that to people who are providing services for those that are still living and do something with it, add some prevention efforts into their operations or so that they have at least a little bit more information that they can use to add to what they can do with those that are still surviving.

00:33:32.674 --> 00:33:44.440
Alfie, one of the things that we like to do with this podcast is learn a little bit about the personal side of this you mentioned.

00:33:44.440 --> 00:33:50.930
You went back to when you were five years old and your grandmother, they all started then.

00:33:50.930 --> 00:33:54.782
Yeah, yeah, tell me a little bit about yourself.

00:33:54.782 --> 00:33:57.387
How did you get to where you are today?

00:33:59.176 --> 00:34:09.027
Okay, so again, my grandmother told me I was nosy and I always loved asking questions.

00:34:09.027 --> 00:34:12.211
I started the corner's office as a secretary.

00:34:12.815 --> 00:34:13.197
Really.

00:34:13.356 --> 00:34:21.715
As a secretary and undergrad and I just needed a job to where I could work from eight to noon, because I had to go to class from one to five.

00:34:23.137 --> 00:34:24.440
Was that here in Indy?

00:34:24.539 --> 00:34:26.623
Here in Indy, I was at IUPUI.

00:34:26.623 --> 00:34:30.230
I just needed two more years to get through my program.

00:34:30.315 --> 00:34:33.817
So that was your first exposure to the corners office First exposure.

00:34:33.938 --> 00:34:35.882
I didn't even know what the corner's office was.

00:34:35.882 --> 00:34:43.425
I went through a temp service and the day two I said I love this place.

00:34:43.425 --> 00:34:47.255
I mean just answering the phone and answering questions from people.

00:34:47.255 --> 00:34:48.438
They did not.

00:34:48.438 --> 00:34:55.695
They had just dealt with the worst day of their life and it was my pleasure to help them understand.

00:34:55.695 --> 00:34:58.278
So my major was psychology.

00:34:58.278 --> 00:34:58.920
Oh, wow.

00:34:59.641 --> 00:35:03.889
And so I was going to go on and I was going to be a psychiatrist and all of those things.

00:35:03.889 --> 00:35:08.487
Day two at the corner's office, I was like I love it here.

00:35:08.487 --> 00:35:14.782
I love doing this, Answering questions, helping people get through the process.

00:35:14.782 --> 00:35:19.349
So I said, hey, I got to figure out a way to stay here.

00:35:19.349 --> 00:35:20.717
I can't be a secretary forever.

00:35:20.717 --> 00:35:31.041
So I ended up training as a deputy corner and then did that for us for several years and then became what did that training involve?

00:35:31.483 --> 00:35:33.226
training for as a deputy corner.

00:35:33.226 --> 00:35:49.570
There's a state certification that you have to obtain 40 hours of state certification and then field work, just being out in the field conducting death investigations and writing reports and asking questions and understanding circumstances of death and cause of death and manner of death.

00:35:49.570 --> 00:35:53.501
And you know it's not a glamorous life.

00:35:53.501 --> 00:35:57.009
You come across some really, really bad things.

00:35:57.009 --> 00:36:03.155
You see bad things, things that you know some people cannot handle seeing.

00:36:03.454 --> 00:36:03.715
Yes.

00:36:04.476 --> 00:36:08.603
You smell the worst of the worst in a lot of those situations.

00:36:08.603 --> 00:36:11.726
But whatever it was, I still loved it.

00:36:11.726 --> 00:36:29.320
I still loved it, and so I then was appointed in 2005 as the chief deputy Still wet behind the ears, still trying to figure things out, but as the chief deputy, I just had this goal of like.

00:36:29.320 --> 00:36:45.925
I knew that the corner's office was just a small number of staff, but I really had this feeling that I wanted it to be like a family, and so, as chief deputy, had some, you know, very difficult situations, some very difficult times, challenges.

00:36:46.027 --> 00:37:01.096
I learned a lot over the years, but it made me more compassionate to the families and the families that we serve and what they're dealing with on the worst day of their life and more and more.

00:37:01.096 --> 00:37:18.277
I just began, so my staff called me the people whisperer, because they can have the most aggressive family, the meanest family members that are dealing with grief, that are not able to be calmed down, and they're like here's one for you.

00:37:18.277 --> 00:37:30.010
And immediately you know when I'm talking they send the call to me and I just slow it down a bit and just ask about their loved one.

00:37:30.010 --> 00:37:32.539
Tell me about your loved one.

00:37:32.539 --> 00:37:44.382
Tell me what they like to eat, tell me who they were before they died Regardless again, no matter the circumstance, what were they like before all of this?

00:37:44.382 --> 00:37:48.447
And to give that family an opportunity to just talk about their loved one.

00:37:48.447 --> 00:37:57.521
It changed the tone of the entire conversation and so I learned that you know, people just needed that outlet to express that.

00:37:57.521 --> 00:38:02.847
They were angry, they're grieving, they're sad, they're upset, they're mad, they're hurt.

00:38:03.688 --> 00:38:11.920
It's painful to go through this and so, unfortunately for me, I also experienced this.

00:38:11.920 --> 00:38:20.471
I lost my son, Jimmy, 27 years old, in 2021 due to a fentanyl overdose.

00:38:20.471 --> 00:38:35.688
So right in the middle of the fentanyl opioid crisis, you know, I lost my son and he and I were super close and it was I knew then.

00:38:35.688 --> 00:38:38.650
I know what these families feel.

00:38:38.650 --> 00:38:48.646
I know what they feel, ironically, just prior to his death when we were going through the COVID epidemic pandemic.

00:38:48.646 --> 00:38:49.126
I'm sorry the.

00:38:49.306 --> 00:38:50.128
COVID pandemic.

00:38:50.128 --> 00:38:52.990
I knew people were suffering.

00:38:52.990 --> 00:39:02.115
So many people were just unexpectedly dying and people were grieving all around me, all over the place families, friends, people were just you know.

00:39:02.115 --> 00:39:18.239
You know that death was just happening so fast, especially at the very beginning, and I had hired a person to work for our office, just to call families the next day and I said I don't know what your position is.

00:39:18.239 --> 00:39:21.726
This is what I need for you to do again, another project.

00:39:21.726 --> 00:39:24.215
This is what I need for you to do Every day.

00:39:24.215 --> 00:39:27.260
I need you to call these families who have lost loved ones.

00:39:27.260 --> 00:39:30.324
And she said, okay, I'll do it.

00:39:30.324 --> 00:39:35.731
And she is a compassionate pastor who her life has been service.

00:39:35.731 --> 00:39:42.809
She's been a chaplain for IMPD, a chaplain for the Sheriff's Department, and I saw her walking down the street in my neighborhood and I said Sarah, I need you.

00:39:42.809 --> 00:39:48.382
And she came in and learned the system and started calling families just to offer condolences.

00:39:48.382 --> 00:39:49.965
That was in 2020.

00:39:50.465 --> 00:40:00.545
In 2021, I lost Jimmy and I said I don't know what this is about, but I know now what that feeling is to lose a loved one.

00:40:00.545 --> 00:40:02.007
I know what that looks like.

00:40:02.007 --> 00:40:06.998
It's not good and you don't get over it next week, right.

00:40:06.998 --> 00:40:13.487
And so it changed the way I operated from that point on Now.

00:40:13.487 --> 00:40:19.041
I've always had compassion for the families, don't get me wrong, but it intensified.

00:40:19.041 --> 00:40:33.309
It intensified to serve those survivors that are dealing with grief and loss, and especially when you have it happening so fast between COVID and the opioid pandemic or epidemic.

00:40:33.309 --> 00:40:39.266
So COVID pandemic, opioid epidemic, hundreds of thousands of people.

00:40:39.266 --> 00:40:51.994
That's when our caseload increased to a point where I thought I don't know if I can do this anymore, but something inside me and God must have said hold on, it's going to be okay.

00:40:52.476 --> 00:40:56.346
And then, after I lost Jimmy, I thought I really cannot do this.

00:40:56.346 --> 00:41:06.824
I don't know if I can do this anymore, but I was able to and I just added a different component to what I did, a compassionate component to the survivors.

00:41:06.824 --> 00:41:11.025
So now I say I serve the survivors.

00:41:11.025 --> 00:41:22.086
I take care of the dead, but I serve the survivors, because the survivors are the ones who are just simply trying to get up every day and put one foot in front of the other.

00:41:22.086 --> 00:41:33.155
And some of the survivors could be those that are unhoused and who are homeless, and it could exacerbate their situation to even put them in those situations.

00:41:33.295 --> 00:41:39.380
We've had families who have lost loved ones, they're brand winners, they're loved ones, and then what happens?

00:41:39.380 --> 00:41:45.855
They then become unhoused and unsheltered and have unstable housing.

00:41:45.855 --> 00:41:51.012
So you know, this is all full circle, and I'm just thinking about this.

00:41:51.012 --> 00:41:57.255
It is, this is full circle in everything that I do with intention.

00:41:57.255 --> 00:42:26.371
It has, you know, changed the way that I live my life, the way that I operate, the way that I do everything, and so you know I'll put this shameless plug in here, but I am running for corner now and I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to have learned all of the things and to be able to continue the work that I do, because another quarter could come in and say I don't want to do any of that and I don't even want you to be my chief deputy anymore.

00:42:26.371 --> 00:42:29.889
Right, I can't do that Like this is too deep for me.

00:42:30.661 --> 00:42:31.375
It's who you are.

00:42:31.902 --> 00:42:33.358
It's not just what you do, it is.

00:42:36.164 --> 00:42:43.244
And so I said, okay, I've got to take this leap and run for corner, because I'm not going to run for corner, because I want to continue this work for as long as I'm able to do that.

00:42:43.244 --> 00:42:57.106
So that's, you know who I am, and anyone who knows knows that I'm straightforward, I'm compassionate and I'm going to do whatever I can to help someone else.

00:42:57.106 --> 00:42:59.733
Bottom line.

00:43:01.844 --> 00:43:02.407
That's who I am.

00:43:02.407 --> 00:43:03.512
Thank you, Alfie.

00:43:04.880 --> 00:43:06.059
Thank you For the opportunity.