Mass public funeral planned for more than 130 of Wayne County's unclaimed dead

OkieGranny

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http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/06/mass_public_funeral_service_pl.html

Nearly 135 bodies are being stored in Wayne County Medical Examiner freezers awaiting burial. Most of them have been waiting for years.

A coalition, led by the Jewish Fund which is donating $60,000 for caskets, has formed to give the dead proper burials following a mass interfaith public memorial service scheduled for July 9...

"We are making every effort to ensure that no burial takes place without at least an effort to have family members present."
 
I'm speechless. Thank you to the organization that is making the burials possible. :-(
 
http://www.freep.com/article/20140709/NEWS02/307090077/Wayne-County-unclaimed-bodies-funeral

Clutching hands under a tent, a crowd of mourners Wednesday afternoon at a Catholic cemetery in Brownstown Township sang together: “It is good when we sit together as brothers and sisters.”

The memorial service at Our Lady of Hope Cemetery was for about 170 unclaimed bodies that have been at the Wayne County morgue. In some cases, family members were unable or unwilling to pay for their burials...

Gomoll was there with her fellow employees at a Kroger grocery store in Canton to remember Matt Morris, who died last year at 36 of an overdose, his body discovered in a Westland marsh. Family members never claimed his body from the county morgue. Friends such as Gomoll tried to get his body to give him a burial, but were unable because of legal restrictions requiring a family member to get the body.
 
That is an idiotic rule saying the family has to claim the body and if they don't no one else can pay for a funeral. Talk about a waste of taxpayer dollars! If the family doesn't want to claim it then why in the heck wouldn't they let friends handle the arrangements?

I am surprised they keep all of the bodies in the morgue, i saw a documentary on how L.A. County handles this issue, I believe they cremate them after a certain amount of time and then have mass burials for the cremains later. It saves on space. If they know who the person is they take the expenses of handling the body out of the deceased's estate before releasing the funds to anyone.
 

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