Pennsylvania coroners, medical examiners turning to the public for clues about unclaimed dead

The names of more than 100 unclaimed dead in Montgomery County had been public for one week when the first call came in.

A friend of a Pottstown woman who was murdered in 2014 reached out. She connected the coroner's office with the woman's daughter, who has expressed interest in collecting the ashes, he said.

More recently, a mother who wanted to claim the fetal remains of her child also contacted the office.

Montgomery County is among a growing number of Pennsylvania coroner and medical examiner offices going public with what once had been a private effort: Tracking down family members of the dead.

More from this series:  Read our award-winning reporting, and see list of the Unclaimed Dead

Those offices have long used different methods for identifying next of kin, including law enforcement-only databases, and more recently the Internet and genealogy websites. In recent years, more have started releasing personal information about the dead to generate leads about their family.

Montgomery County is among the counties where the coroner's office is reopening old unclaimed files and reaching out to family again, years later. Frequently family is located at the time of death, but cannot, or will not, claim a body, according to coroners.

More: Unclaimed no more: Bucks man reunited with cousin whose remains were in lawyer's care for 20 years

In Chester County, Coroner Dr. Christina VandePol recently posted notices on Facebook and with local media ahead of the second-ever interment service for unclaimed remains of non-veterans.

The "final call" notice included the names of the dead, their ages and last known residence, along with a contact number for the coroner’s office. The ashes of two of the 28 individuals were claimed as a result of the posting, VandePol said.

The Luzerne County Coroner’s Office has been criticized over the last year, most recently in February, by families who claim the office failed to notify them about a death before burying the remains in a potter’s field.

Coroner Francis Hacken, who took over last October, is working to enhance the office’s abilities to locate and notify next of kin, according to media reports. The plans include listing the names and other information about unclaimed deceased on the county website, Hacken said.

“At the present time we are not using social media for the location of next of kin in unclaimed bodies, but we do plan an initiative in this area,” Hacken said in an email. “We do recognize the benefits of social media.”

When she took over as Bucks County coroner in January, Meredith Buck said she had to create a formal system for identifying next of kin. In recent memory, the county has not made public efforts to gather next-of-kin information.

“Unfortunately, it is unclear as to what measures may or may not have been taken to locate next of kin prior to me taking office, given that my predecessor did not pass on this information,” Buck said in an email.

Bucks County has more than 200 unclaimed dead dating to at least 1999, stored at the morgue in Warminster, according to county data.

Buck called social media an “invaluable” resource for tracking down leads to family connections with unclaimed dead. She is also compiling a list of unclaimed dead and plans to follow Montgomery County’s lead and post it on the county’s website, which is being updated.

Montgomery County’s decision to post the names and other details about unclaimed dead in its possession is its latest attempt to remove them from the rolls. The public list will be updated several times a year, said First Deputy Coroner Alexander Balacki.

Since last year, 13 adults and 12 fetal remains have been interred or otherwise returned to family since Montgomery County began enhancing its family identification efforts, Balacki said.

Montgomery County currently has the remains of 124 unclaimed dead including 22 new cases this year as of Oct. 29.  A little more than half are considered abandoned.

More: After a decade, one of Montgomery County’s longest unclaimed finally laid to rest

President of the Pennsylvania Coroners Association Charles Kiessling Jr., who is the Lycoming County coroner, recently started posting requests for next-of-kin information on his office’s Facebook page.

His inspiration was the Indiana State Coroners Association, which encouraged members to use social media to reach a wider audience, especially in mediums with the ability to share a post with others.

So far, it’s been one of his most successful methods, Kiessling said.

Recently he posted a message looking for help tracking down the family of a recently deceased woman.

Within hours, the wife of a Pennsylvania State Trooper saw it, and recognized the name as her husband’s cousin. The trooper connected Kiessling with information for the woman’s brother who made arrangements to retrieve her body.

“It’s amazing how social media is faster,” Kiessling added. “Social media has saved us a boatload of time.”

More: Unclaimed: Suzanne Triano changed lives. Now, her remains wait unclaimed in Pennsylvania

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Social media the new tool for finding family of unclaimed dead