By Caitlin Doughty from Ask a Mortician recently posted a video about Peter Stefan and the scandal surrounding his funeral home. Stefan, a funeral director from Worcester, MA, had his license suspended in 2019 when authorities found nearly a dozen decomposing and unidentified bodies in his possession (note: Stefan’s license was reinstated in early 2020). Doughty’s video highlights an important issue: how should we handle abandoned, indigent, and unclaimed bodies in America, many of which languish in morgues for weeks or months?
With the influx of deaths caused by the novel coronavirus, important questions about how we store the dead in times of crisis have been pushed into the spotlight.
The reality is that beyond this crisis, morgues, medical and private facilities, along with funeral homes, will often keep unclaimed bodies in storage until they can be cremated and buried in mass graves.
Who these unclaimed bodies belonged to, and what led them to become unclaimed is not a simple answer. We reached out to different death professionals, and dove into laws and policies across the states, to learn more about how these bodies are processed, and why the numbers of unclaimed are on the rise.
This is What Happens to Unclaimed Bodies in America
Policies and Laws Regarding Unclaimed Bodies in America
Autopsy, by Enrique Simonet, 1890. Museum of Málaga, Málaga, Spain. In the 1800s, unclaimed bodies would be used by medical schools for dissections. The practice does continue to this day in some parts of America.
In the United States, when a body goes unclaimed it becomes the responsibility of the government, which is similar to Canada, but the laws and regulations vary more widely than they do in Canada.
In 1831 and 1832, Anatomy Acts were passed in many states that allowed for medical schools to dissect unclaimed bodies. Unfortunately, many of these bodies went unclaimed because the families were too poor to afford a funeral. This led to a public outcry that resulted in the banning of body donations from the unclaimed in many states. In states like Oregon however, the unclaimed are still largely going to medical schools, where the institution pays for the cremation of the remains.
America has no uniform system for managing the unclaimed. The only federal level role for the unclaimed dead falls with The Department of Veteran Affairs, who will arrange a burial in a military cemetery for veterans.
There is no standard practice around reasonable searches (the various avenues of research and investigation for the identity of the body and next of kin or claimant), with laws also varying by state, county, and city. Though Joshua Slocum, Executive Director of Funeral Consumers Alliance, explains that most states require that the government must make a good faith effort to locate next of kin.
Some states consider a few days sufficient for a search, while others say the body must be held for a month and can only be buried or cremated if the kin is not found in that amount of time.
What happens to the Abandoned, Indigent, or Unclaimed Body in America?
Unclaimed bodies are mostly cremated in the United States. Cremation lowers the cost to the government, and is more efficient for storage. The ashes are often buried in a large collective grave, or in a columbarium (above ground mausoleum for urns). Ashes may also be stored in morgues, funeral homes, medical or private storage facilities. The state usually keeps a record of the person’s identity, if known, and where the urn was buried.
A sad stone in the old Potters Field. Westminster, Maryland. This is the final resting place of the unwanted and unidentified. Some may have died at the nearby Almshouse, which is now part of the Carroll County Farm Museum. Image via Bryan Costin.
In Massachusetts, state law allows a funeral establishment to scatter unclaimed cremated remains in a cemetery area designated for that purpose after 12 months. The Oregon State Hospital has thousands of cremated remains in storage, and recently published an online searchable database to help identify next of kin.
Funeral homes may have what is known as the “cremation closet.” This is a non-public area where the unclaimed cremated remains are stored as they wait for a more permanent interment. And though there exists many horror stories about body storage, most funeral homes are respectful to the remains they have onsite, and do their due diligence to identify next of kin or arrange a burial.
Peter Stefan, mentioned above, has around 300 stored cremated remains – some that date back to 100 years – with the full intention of giving each one a proper burial. His compassion towards the unclaimed is admirable, but he is held back by bureaucracy and lack of funding. This is not just an isolated case as funeral homes, medical facilities, and storage facilities across the United States lack funding for proper burial, don’t have the staffing and resources to conduct their own reasonable searches, or must wait for authorities to close the cases surrounding their deaths.
In states that bury the unclaimed, most have either bought a number of plots in an existing cemetery, or, a few places like New York City, have their own land that they use as a cemetery for the unclaimed dead. In fact, Hart Island in New York City is the largest tax-funded burial ground in North America with more than one million people buried in mass graves since 1875.
A trench at the potter’s field on Hart Island, circa 1890 by Jacob Riis
Melinda Hunt founded The Hart Island Project, which maintains an on-line database of people buried between 1980 and present as well as maps of their grave locations. Hunt told us that, prior to COVID-19, 6-10% of recorded deaths in NYC are unclaimed and buried on Hart Island.
Rituals around the burial of the unclaimed are not common. “First, some things to remember about unclaimed bodies.” Slocum explains, “People tend to ask questions like, ‘Does anyone do a ritual for them?’ This assumes that there’s something ‘wrong’ or ‘cold’ about not doing ceremonies for the unclaimed dead. But that’s not really straightforward, is it? The dead don’t know what we do or don’t do with their bodies. It’s not possible to ‘insult’ or ‘neglect’ an unclaimed body. There is no person there who is experiencing anything.”
Slocum argues that the lack of ritual is not cold or cruel; it’s logistics. “Governments don’t have an emotional interest in the unclaimed dead. That’s not mean or uncaring, it’s just a fact. Governments need to take care of getting the body buried, but they don’t have any family sentiment toward the unclaimed dead.”
That being said, there are still some states that have rituals around unclaimed burials. In Los Angeles, unclaimed bodies are cremated if no one comes to retrieve them within a month of death, after which the remains are kept in the county coroner’s office for another three years. At this point, the remains are buried in a mass grave with an annual interfaith funeral—a practice that dates to the 1890s.
Remember Oregon? They also have rituals around the cremation of their unclaimed bodies, and will even help pay for additional funeral costs if the next of kin are discovered.
How many Unclaimed Bodies are there in America?
Hart Island. Photo via Francisco Daum
It is difficult to know, since the processes around dealing with the unclaimed vary from state, county or city. Though Slocum explained there are many states that require that the names of the unclaimed are recorded, so there is a way to figure out how many are unclaimed in different regions around the country. For example, in Los Angeles, back in 2018 they buried 1,457 people in their annual burial ceremony.
According to The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System “It is estimated that 4,400 unidentified bodies are recovered each year, with approximately 1,000 of those bodies remaining unidentified after one year.” For every 4,400 bodies, about 25% remain unidentified after one year, and 14% are buried or cremated. But again, this is just an estimate, since not all unclaimed bodies are entered into these types of databases, and not all unclaimed bodies are missing persons. Nor are these databases connected.
The political realities of death and race in America also adds to the difficulty in accessing the number of unclaimed. In the American South for example, activists are trying to find and record the forgotten bodies of Mexican migrants, many of whom travel with few documents. Elsewhere, many of the unclaimed come from lower-socio economic areas, where families who cannot afford the cost of a funeral may not claim a body.
There will always be unclaimed bodies in America. What can we do about it?
There will always be unclaimed bodies in America, but the systems in place to handle the abandoned, indigent, and unclaimed clearly needs improvement.
A light at the end of this bureaucratic tunnel are the professionals within various healthcare organizations, funeral homes and coroner’s office that are working to improve this situation.
Some tips on how facilities and institutions can improve the situation include prioritizing advanced care planning, documenting wishes and claimant information, and creating a plan within the organization that follows the reasonable search. All facilities involved with the unclaimed need to communicate more and help and support each other.
So, this is what happens to unclaimed bodies in America. It is important we remember and consider the moral and cultural aspects of treatment of our unclaimed bodies in order to maintain ethical standards appropriate for all.
of course it is a sad situation when a body goes unclaimed after his or her death.
but there is another problem what happens like in my case I have some semi serious health issues but it seems I may live to 75 or 80 years old currently I am 60 I have asthma and since a teen and have contracted Meningitis on 2018.
the problems that i have with my family do not lead me believe that they will resolved any time soon and I am definitely not going to care as I get either sicker or older to solve them it is too stressful to deal with my relatives who do not want to change their ways.
I have no interest in spending 20 to 40 thousand on a burial site not even 5000 dollars to be put in the ground or cremated specially that I am the last person my family thinks of when they wish to celebrate something but I am the first they think of when money is needed.
I am not rich and I do not see the point in paying for something that I will not need and once I am gone specially since I have leaved around my family always but was shocked when my sisters told me that for years they did not know where I was I had to remind them that I was at all their daughters birth day celebration, Easter, mother’s day, father’s day, July 4th celebration, spent countless hours watching national soccer games with my family and boxing matches (I am Mexican), Olympic games.
My younger son and my ex wife lied to me through out my son’s high school years and was made to believe that he wanted to go to the police academy but one day after graduation le left for the military and I totally found out about it by accident when my son and his friends were drunk at a back yard party on the back of our home.
My oldest son right now is the only one to whom I feel any loyalty but he is manipulated by my ex to the point that he is pretty much useless has no plans for the future and seems not interested in developing any type of career and try to get a job in his field in which he got a degree or something related to it.
however he is my son and would like not to leave any debt for him so my question is what happens if no one claims my body when I die.
My ex is a real piece of work while we were ok financially she was great but as financially thing took a bad turn due to the financial crisis we had because of me being unemployed due to down sizing of the company I worked for and because being unable to keep a job due to my illness I began to notice that she had been living a double life for quite a few years and I trusted her too much and my eyes were open way to late to be prepare for anything. when I was release from the hospital she let everyone know that she would not take care of me because she was too busy so I ended up moving with my sister yes the one that told me that they had no seen my face for years but of course she was willing to take me in as long as paid rent.
I do not expect my ex to claim any financial responsibility over my death since she filed for divorce as I was lying in the recovery room after spending 3 weeks in the I C U and advised me that she had filed for divorce.
I do not want to be a burden to my son on my death so what is the best way to abandon by body and not have anyone come after my older son for the expenses.
True I am no angel I never claimed to be but I have never betrayed anyone nor abandoned anyone on their time of need but obviously it is definitely time I start to prepare myself for the worst and hopefully it will not be so bad.
thanks and I hope you can give me some pointers on what to do I really do not want to leave any debt for my older son or anyone actually I want to die and hopefully finally rest in peace.
I do not want a burial, it is just too expensive, I do not want to be cremated at a funeral home because that is also expensive.
I have read in some articles that you can be cremated for around 500 dollars but no one advertises where those prices can be found I wish to donate by body to science so they can maybe get some benefit out of it but not sure if there are any costs involved.
if no one claims my body will the state or hospital try to collect from my next of kin by biggest fear is that I abandon my body and my oldest son receives a bill for my disposal.
I do have some assets but like I said I have no interest in spending any money to dispose of my body when I am dead.
I hear you Jose,
We are both rocking the same both.
I have just one son, he is an adult in his own right, approaching 40.
His wife pulls all the strings and has driven a wedge between my and
my son and my wife of 42 years. Naturally, my son sides with his wife.
I have been diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure. I had put an
Health Advance Directive in place, made up a will and also arranged
or have my body donated to science as a Plan A or if that is not possible
at the time of my passing, to have my body cremated as a Plan B.
So when I pass on the only thing they would need to do is just make one
damn phone call and everything will be taken care of, no need to add
more stress at such a stressful time.
But this bitch of a daughter-in-law has created so much havoc in our
lives that I am now making arrangements to revoke everything I did for
a smooth “transition” to one which creates nothing but havoc for the
family when I pass on. Since they have ALL turned against me, why should
I make things easy on them. I have a sizable estate, NOT huge but sizable
enough…fuck them all, let them go to probate court to fight about it after
my death and let the attorneys eat most of it and they take whatever is left
after all court and attorney dues are paid.
Fuck them all.
I hear you Mike, I’m in a very similar situation but because my family has all turned their back on me and the constant fighting when I die instead of giving any of my million dollar fortune to them I donated it to the local humane society to take care of animals with it
thats awesome! so admirable. thank you for doing that. i wish more people thought like us. its scary though, once we die, we dont really know what people do with our bodies. i mean, maybe we do lol but you know what i mean. anyway, thank you again for what you’re doing for the animals. i feel like they deserve things like that and most people don’t
“creates nothing but havoc for the family when I pass on”
Wow, I suspect your daughter in law is not the problem.
Wow. Sandy you know so much about Mike’s situation don’t you?
thats awesome! so admirable. thank you for doing that. i wish more people thought like us. its scary though, once we die, we dont really know what people do with our bodies. i mean, maybe we do lol but you know what i mean. anyway, thank you again for what you’re doing for the animals. i feel like they deserve things like that and most people don’t
I hear all of you. I was so naive about my family too. It’s a shame your family don’t give a damn unless you are putting out money when they need it. When money gone they won’t answer the phone when you call them. So, I say this when your time comes you can prepare a pre-need, pay for your expenses, so regardless how much it cost down the road the funeral homes can’t charge you because it’s already paid for. If you finish paying your expenses and it cost $5000 in ten etc yrs you know it will cost about 15000 or more. The rest of the money give it to an organization with a NO contesting Will. Leave them $1.00. That will make them curse you out. That will give them something to talk about for years. They will always have your name in/on their mind. Now, if they want to diss you now you will have the last laugh when you look down on their …. I want to say one more thing. The Dead do know what the Living does. I’m the Living Proof. Keep Smiling 😁😁, they are the ones that will regret what they do to God least one. Don’t forget the ones that loves you, I’m not talking about the phonys Whatever you do make sure you have copies to more than person of what you want done. We are ALL going through the same things. Someone loves us more powerful than you and I. Stay Strong you will see some of them go before you.
Hi, is it possible as a civilian to create a database that can document these bodies to allow families to view them. Are there any repercussions and can it be allowed by the government especially in a third world country like Zambia.
I’m in a similar situation. I got some good advice on how to not pass on debts to my only child who’s 35 now. He is the only person I have anything to do with. I made a will that was very specific about no funeral. And I’ve arranged for my body to go to a certain University her in Canada that does research on brain injuries from multiple concussions ( 8 for me) in women abuse victims. Hopefully I can make a difference after I’m gone . When they finish with me they pay for and cremate me then send ashes to my son. My will says wear to dump them. If you are interested, do a google search for ‘research donate bodies near me’. Read threw them and many will pay for cremation. You can also add perhaps name of a disease or condition in that search.
You seem to be like me and have been born into a life of users and abusers. I discovered solitude 7 or so years ago, well it discovered me. So me and my cat, we prefer being alone, blocking numbers and not sharing addresses. Only my son knows my details and he has my will and last request and directions for morgue to contact university.
Though I’m very disabled I have chosen to live my life my way, be as independent as possible and only go out if I have to go to hospital or drs. . Many of my drs are still happy with online or phone appointments .
Those other relatives will not change so think about you stopping the cycle. This is your only life, live it your way. You can even chose to give money to a charity not relatives when you die . Good luck and find out online rules for inheritance in your state. It’s all online. You can get all your ducks in a row for free and get free advice if you are clever about your searches. Try hard to leave some lasting memories with your son. Good luck
Yes, you can donate your body to science and plan this ahead. If there is a local medical school program near you, many of them have body donor programs.
They will be able to tell you their requirements. When I signed up I got a card that I keep with me at all times. My family and/or whomever sees my things calls them and they will transport the body to them. I live in TX so you would need to look up one’s ear you.
Yeah people suck
Consider donating your body to science. It is free.
Yes, it’s true and they take care of ALL transportation expenses and scatter you ashes
at sea in the Pacific Northwest. I am planning to do that, signed up already.
donate your body for free to the body farm.. in my opinion as long as you meet the standards that os the most economical way to benefit, yourself, your children and society. not wishing I’ll health on you,, simply trying to assist. https://fac.utk.edu/body-donation/
I hear you Mike, I’m in a very similar situation but because my family has all turned their back on me and the constant fighting when I die instead of giving any of my million dollar fortune to them I donated it to the local humane society to take care of animals with it
I Love animals and if when I pass ⚰️away I was worth a million dollars,💵I would likely give to the humane society 🐕but even though I have been tortured by my family and have many problems with my mental health and homelessness I haven’t lost hope in the human race. Even though there are so many people out here that want to bring you down, there are a few truly caring people that come outside in the streets to give everything they have inside them to help the homeless. Believe it or not we are smart, caring, creative, many with pets of their own to recieve & give unconditional love too we have just been mentally beat down for so long it’s hard to get up by yourself. I hope you will find it in your ❤️ heart to find a organization who picks People up when they have been knocked down too. 🙏🏻🙏🏽🙏🏿sharing is caring. I’m sure the animals won’t mind😺
Asa mortician, you quickly learn that a human body is a human body regardless of its worth in millions of dollars. Bertrand Russell said “when you die you rot and noting of your ego survives.”
It is your money to do with what you want. And helping animals is a good thing. But perhaps some of your fortune would you say is $1 million, can be set aside for those who come to you seeking assistance in being buried or cremated with the disposal of their body either entombed, bird or scattered as they sell wish. If you would do that for a dog or a cat, why wouldn’t you do it for a person. You should set some money aside now and allow the interest to be used for this purpose. And I would set aside some money for the gentleman identified in this post
Almost everyone in this conversation is saying to donate your body at death is free and that the researching scientists organization pay for the cremation when they are done. The person that made the comment about their million dollar fortune and instead of them passing their money to their ungrateful crappy people they would rather spend it on helping animals and then YOU pipe up suggesting that they spend at least part of their money helping other unfortunate people because if they are willing to help animals then why wouldn’t they help other people dispose of their bodies? You made me laugh. Not certain about you however, my personal experience in life regarding people such as family members for example
can be extremely mean and toxic. So much so that they affect their victim for years and years often times. People have choices in life. Animals don’t. That person that is planning to donate their million dollar fortune on helping animals that cannot help themselves vs donating to help unfortunate people right here in the same situation as they themselves except for the money aspect.. please think about your ridiculous comment and next time perhaps keep ridiculous thoughts to yourself and just keep scrolling that way other people such as me cannot laugh at your utter ridiculousness lol
I agree with you. I will give it to an organization. I will tell you this, if you have millions and you have soso health. Travel and have a good time. When they put their hands on the money they are going to spend it like no tomorrow. So you might as well get your grove on you only lives once. My aunt use to tell me… I don’t want the money to leave me… I want to leave the money. You get my drift. Let’s stay strong we have the upper hand. They just don’t know about it yet.
My brother passed away on 12/11/2021 and we can’t get any help from a funeral home I contacted around 4days after he died. He has children but only one is willing to sigh off so he can be cremated but the funeral home I’m in contact with won’t send the documents needed to get him cremated. It’s very frustrating because we are all in different cities.
Try getting it emailed to you, it’s very easy!
Im single dont have children and stayed away from siblings because they are violent and toxic. I have no idea what will happen to my body. I hope it becomes food for the earth.
I’m in the same boat you are in. I don’t feel comfortable asking my now estranged family which includes my very abusive brothers to take care of me after I die. Thank God it says organ donor on my drivers license the rest of my body please God make it useful by having the right people bring it to a body farm where it’s donated to science
Seeing so many people who are estranged from family in these comments makes me so sad… I hope you all know none of you are a burden.
I just witnessed a man die on a pavement. No ID, homeless and potentially an overdose. I hope he is able to be claimed. I had to research this to bring myself peace. And I don’t think this article did that.
But I hope when the time comes for any of you to passing what happens to your body is what you want. I send my love.
I’m in the same situation. Family only comes around when it’s their birthday and holidays. My daughter(the only one) and brother hustled me so many times for money. They almost bleed me dry.. I had to take a studio to build back my wealth. I invited them to my space and they had the audacity to ridicule me. My daughter took lictures of my apartment and sent it out to her friends bashing me. That was really a dark day for me. The next day I cut everybody off! Prior I had a great apt Everybody else in my family has passed. My life expectancy is about another 8-10 years. I plan to assign someone (still figuring this one out) to cremate me and spread my ashes on top of a hill. If you die from a crime in NYS the state gives you about $7k. This was the situation with my brother. With no services other than a cremation the funeral home deducted about $3k.
I have no family other than my sister who is 12 years older and I’m 59. Once she goes, I will have no one to help me when i get old or to bury me when I dead. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I am Christian and would ike a proper Christian burial. I don’t have lots of money but I”m not destitute either, just the average person with a small 401K through my company, doesn’t amount to much and life insurance from my company as well again not a lot of money. No one to claim that insuracne so what do I do? Can I make arrangements for my own funeral and things? How do you trust that someone actually follows the wishes. Donate to science some say but I want a Christian burial, I don’t want to be cut up and then what do they do with the rest of you, toss it or cremate it and throw it in a mass grave? I suppose I shouln’t care, I’ll be dead but it saddens me and I wish I could do something about it.
This is an old thread but I emphasize with everyone so much. I happened on this because I was just told my uncle died. I’m trying to find him so I can get him and do some kind of burial. He was loved. I just wasn’t informed. He is the last of my family and it has made me realize that I will have no one to care for me either. I live by myself and enjoy it. I like the donating my body to science option so I will look into that. I just wish I could be everyone’s friend here. Hugs to you.
My son Daniel Cherry Jr died in January of 2022. I was a single father and the mother lived 200 Mi away. She came up here and I was amicable and we made the arrangements to have him buried in Batavian New York with the H&E Turner Funeral Home in Batavia New York. Well there are papers that need to be signed and I don’t drive and I have one leg so that guy from the H&E Turner funeral home came to my house and I signed the papers to have him cremated and to let her pick up the ashes. It was the ground was frozen. My kids mother Tracy Davenport was supposed to bring him back in May or June so we could bury him. After I signed the paper for the H&E funeral home he said she’s taking him home if you sign that paper he did not say she’s burying him there where I can never go see him and I raised him! And there’s reasons why I did cuz she was a neglectful mother and had neglect and been in jail for it twice and danger in the welfare of a child! But anyway she never brought him back and there was nothing I could do after I signed that paper cuz they tricked me into signing it they didn’t tell me if I sign it that gives her all the rights to do whatever she wanted! These people should be held accountable! I was told if I don’t sign the papers and he’s just sitting there for so long I think 90 days they can do whatever they want with him and we would never know where he was so I thought I did the right thing. But I did not even get to go to my own son’s funeral and my other son Jimmy cherry alleged son I mean he’s 24 if you could be parentally alienated I don’t think that’s what happened he took his mother’s side cuz there was money involved. Thanks son! I don’t need a son like that! So they have the funeral without me nobody told me anything and there’s nothing wrong with that cuz I just raised him and gave him my name Daniel Cherry Jr! I don’t give a f*** what happens to me when I die as long as people that never came when I was alive come when I’m dead and they don’t! They didn’t bother to come when my son died nobody came here not even my son who is alive so you people are the only ones that have had f***** up funerals and s*** it’s really really f***** up what they did to me and to my dead son he couldn’t have any of his friends at his funeral no closure for me and somebody ought to be in serious trouble for what happened and I couldn’t even get a copy of the papers they had me sign cuz they probably wrote stuff on them cuz they weren’t even filled out it was illegal agente Turner funeral home should be in jail! I should be suing them that’s what I should be doing it’s ridiculous! And her and my son we were where my son died and I think he was killed nobody cared about that either and what were they looking for f***** up people the Bitcoin papers so they can get the money they didn’t care what happened to him and whatever they could take my other son and his mother thank you Jimmy cherry and Tracy Davenport I hope somebody reads this someday after I’m deadj
I have told my husband and sons not to claim me. I worked all my life and now have many medical issues. I can no longer do my career nor will anyone hire me due to disability, so reality?, no money. Not enough to live on let alone worry about what happens to my body after death. I’m not coming back, so. No one is responsible for me after death. They keep raising cremation rates, how the h**l can low income people afford it? We can’t nor can the family. Nor can the grown children with their own families. That is reality. Plain and simple. Government doesn’t care when we are alive, why should they when we are dead?! Cremation doesn’t have to costs thousands, should be under a thousand and stay there, less than that for poor people. It’s the least that could be done for the dead but it’s not. No respect for the dead in America, none. If there was, costs would be low, especially referencing cremation. They make all these d**n rules to line their pockets on the grief of people. It’s all BS!
I am 43 and don’t have any family to talk down on so I will be one of the unclaimed I have no assets no money put away I work hard to be broke I’ve got a few more years I wish I could trade the rest of my years to someone who has more to live for Iam so over this life and wish I could move on to what’s next cause it’s got to be better then this