Coroners work to identify bodies

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - 24-Hour News 8 uncovered overcrowding issues at the Marion County Morgue. Today, we learned the number of unidentified bodies has grown.

The Marion County Deputy Coroner says while the overcrowding problem has alleviated a bit. There are now 4 unidentified bodies in the morgue. That number includes three adults and a baby.

The baby's case is under review by a grand jury. But the coroner's office is working to identify 3 adults.  A Citizens Energy employee found the most recent unidentified body in shallow water in the White River. It's a black male between 20 and 30-years-old.

Just last month we learned there was already an unidentified adult male and an unidentified adult female in the morgue. One, a white male in his 40's or 50's died of a self inflicted gunshot wound. And the other, a white female in her 40's or 50's was already skeletonized when authorities found her body.

Marion County Deputy Coroner Alfarena Ballew explains, "Fingerprints came back negative, which means there was no prior arrest and that's the case with the John Doe and the Jane Doe, where fingerprint match there is nothing that we could find. We will work with the detectives to identify if there have been any missing persons reported that may match the identity as far as who we think that it possibly is."

Captain Dave Allender heads up the missing persons division for IMPD, "We are working with the morgue awaiting tests on one case. Hopefully, we will get an answer soon whether it is or not."

Allender says he's working the case of a the body found March 2nd in the White River. But he says the three others don't match any of his cases. "These are not necessarily criminal investigations as a matter the vast majority of these cases we have about 5,000 cases a year roughly and very few of them are criminal." says Allender.

Some of the bodies have been in the morgue for months. The deputy coroner is awaiting DNA results on one case and working with a sketch artist for another. The identification process could take months and the bodies remain in the morgue all that time. The coroner also uses a national missing persons database to search for possible matches. So far, there have been no matches on the three adult bodies.