The rising homicide rate and opioid epidemic in a Kentucky county has led to a city’s coroner requesting additional money for resources.
Jefferson County coroner Barbara Wheatley Jones has asked the Louisville Metro Council for $60,000 to build a morgue and fund three additional deputy coroners to speed up response times. The county currently leases four spaces in the state morgue, but averages five bodies a day. The city has to pay a private company to store extra corpses.
The coroner’s office handled 5,400 deaths in 2016 and is expected to handle 6,200 cases this year, a significant rise from 4,700 deaths in 2014. The office has seen 49 homicide deaths this year and coroners see two to three overdose deaths daily.
Source: AP
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