Marshall County Coroner, John Grolich presented an ordinance he and County Attorney Jim Clevenger crafted that would establish fees for storing human remains in the cooler at the County Morgue.
The coroner said a few weeks ago there was a body located that had been outside for about 8 days before it was discovered, it was a homicide, and the body has started to decompose.
After the autopsy was completed and identification was made the remains could have been released to the funeral home, but the coroner’s office had to store the body for another 7 or 8 days before the funeral home came and picked up the remains. They told Grolich they didn’t have any place to store the body. He told them he would store it but there would be a charge. That’s when he realized there wasn’t an ordinance to support the fee.
The proposed ordinance would go into effective September 1st and charge $50 a day for the storage of human remains and a $90 fee for human remains that are decomposed. The ordinance states that if the storage of a body is in the Marshall County Morgue for the funeral homes in the county or for a county contiguous and there is a mutual aid agreement there would not be a charge.
The Commissioners suspended the rules and passed the ordinance on all three readings. It will go into effect on September 1st.
