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Speaker 1: Mother Knows Death Presents External Exams with Nicole and Jimmy.

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Speaker 2: Hi everyone. On this week's external Exam, we will be

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Speaker 2: talking about a topic that we don't hear much about,

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Speaker 2: which is what happens when bodies go unclaimed. And as

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Speaker 2: you guys know that I have primarily done autopsies for

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Speaker 2: my career, but when I was doing autopsies, I did

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Speaker 2: have a position at the hospital where I was taking

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Speaker 2: care of all of the dead bodies in the hospital,

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Speaker 2: not just the ones getting autopsied, and there would be

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Speaker 2: times because I released the bodies to the funeral directors,

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Speaker 2: there would be times that nobody picked a body up.

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Speaker 2: And it was the role in the hospital that when

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Speaker 2: we had a body for longer than seven days living

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Speaker 2: in our more griffic we would say we would send

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Speaker 2: the body to the medical examiner's office and then they

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Speaker 2: kind of had to deal with it from there because

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Speaker 2: in the hospital, we can't have people that are decomposing.

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Speaker 2: Even though refrigeration slows down the rate of decomposition, we

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Speaker 2: just couldn't have that because of the smell that happens unfortunately,

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Speaker 2: and we also just didn't have the resources to try

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Speaker 2: to track down someone to come claim the body. So

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Speaker 2: it definitely did happen throughout the course of my career

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Speaker 2: several times. And we are going to be talking to

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Speaker 2: two authors today of a new book that actually comes

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Speaker 2: out today called Unclaimed Abandonment and Hope in the City

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Speaker 2: of Angels and the authors are Pamela Prickett and Stefan

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Speaker 2: Timmerman's so we're going to talk to them today. Welcome

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Speaker 2: to the show, guys, pleasure to be with you. Thank you,

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Speaker 2: thanks so much for being here. Of Pamela, we'll get

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Speaker 2: started with you first. I know that you are an

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Speaker 2: assistant professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam, a

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Speaker 2: writer and a former broadcaster, So can you give us

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Speaker 2: a little bit information on your background and how you

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Speaker 2: got interested in the topic of unclaimed bodies.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thank you for having us on today.

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Speaker 4: It's an exciting day for us, as you can imagine.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, I think i'd probably like a lot of

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Speaker 4: listeners and a lot of Americans. I didn't think about

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Speaker 4: this subject. It's not one that had crossed my mind

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Speaker 4: ever until I knew somebody who was at risk of

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Speaker 4: going unclaimed. So I did my PhD research in Los

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Speaker 4: Angeles at a mosque in South Los Angeles, and this

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Speaker 4: was while I was doing my PhD at UCLA. And

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Speaker 4: in the course of being at that mosque, there was

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Speaker 4: one of the longtime members I call her Sister Sherry,

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Speaker 4: and Sister Sherry had been a member of this community

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Speaker 4: for decades. She had a lot of insecurities in terms

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Speaker 4: of housing, She struggled with drug and alcohol addictions, and

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Speaker 4: she really relied on the mosque community to help her survive.

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Speaker 4: She passed away, and I recall sitting in the back

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Speaker 4: of the prayer hall one night during Ramadan when the

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Speaker 4: headed man got up and he really implored the community

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Speaker 4: that they needed to raise funds in order to go

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Speaker 4: to court to claim Sister Sherry's body to help her

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Speaker 4: avoid cremation, which is what the County of Los Angeles

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Speaker 4: does in cases of indigent unclaimed deaths. And so it

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Speaker 4: got me thinking about this question that I had never

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Speaker 4: considered before. What happens if you die with no family

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Speaker 4: willing to claim you, And in this case, would also

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Speaker 4: be no religious community if we're talking about something outside

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Speaker 4: of the mosque. And so I should say Sister Sherry

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Speaker 4: was estranged from her family of origin and That's how

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Speaker 4: I came into the subject. And then I started googling,

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Speaker 4: as I think most people would, came across a couple

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Speaker 4: of news stories in the Los Angeles Times, and I

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Speaker 4: was just really surprised to find that every year in

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Speaker 4: Los Angeles, around fifteen hundred, and now the number has

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Speaker 4: gone up closer to two thousand people are dying and

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Speaker 4: being cremated by the county and their ashes insured in

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Speaker 4: a mass grave in boil Heights. And it was something

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Speaker 4: that I had never considered until I had encountered it personally.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting. I never I never really thought

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Speaker 2: about the religious aspect of it, too, because I guess

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Speaker 2: their particular religion has rules what should happen after you die,

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Speaker 2: and cremation isn't one. I don't really know their specific rules,

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Speaker 2: but I do know that that is with some religion.

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Speaker 2: So that's interesting because you definitely want to give people

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Speaker 2: what they want to do with their body after they die. Stefan,

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Speaker 2: you now have kind of some experience with dead bodies.

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Speaker 2: You wrote a book years ago which I actually have

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Speaker 2: as well, so I was kind of excited to finally

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Speaker 2: meet you, which is called post mortem. How medical examiners

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Speaker 2: explain suspicious death. And I know when you wrote that

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Speaker 2: book you got to hang out at the medical examiner's

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Speaker 2: office for a significant amount of time time, which was

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Speaker 2: probably a really cool experience for you, considering that you're

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Speaker 2: a professor of sociology and that's not you're exactly what

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Speaker 2: you went to school for. So I've had lots of

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Speaker 2: people come observe autopsies and just look like very like

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Speaker 2: a ghost, like they're about the thing. It's very traumatizing

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Speaker 2: for them for the first time. But was this experience

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Speaker 2: how you got interested in the unclaimed bodies.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it's sort of a bit of an extension from

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Speaker 1: that project into the unclaimed bodies. I'm very interested in

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Speaker 1: how we as a society deal with debts that don't

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Speaker 1: follow the script of good dying, where you're surrounded by family,

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Speaker 1: you say goodbyees, you focus on pain and comfort, and

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Speaker 1: we have we have a very strong normative idea about

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Speaker 1: what a good death should be. And so I'm interested

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Speaker 1: in the death stuffe outside that spectrum, that's that happened suddenly, unexpectedly, violently,

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Speaker 1: or in the case of the unplayed bodies, that's where

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Speaker 1: a relatives are unable or unwilling to organize a funeral

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Speaker 1: or or organize a burial. And so I'm really interested

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Speaker 1: in how do we fold these debts into an understanding

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Speaker 1: of this is this is this is salvageable, this is

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Speaker 1: there's something.

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Speaker 5: I mean, you cannot just leave these debts.

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Speaker 1: But these unclean body is laying on the street or

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Speaker 1: leaving them in apartments. Something needs to happen with with

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Speaker 1: these bodies. And so I'm interested in the professionals who

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Speaker 1: deal with the unclaimed, that's the sudden, that the suspicious,

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Speaker 1: that's the violent deaths, and how they then provide information

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Speaker 1: to public health, to law enforcement and to families.

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Speaker 2: So you're at UCLA and you're at University of Amsterdam.

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Speaker 2: How did you guys meet?

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Speaker 4: Well, we met while I was at UCLA getting my

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Speaker 4: PhD in so clogy, and so I have known stuff

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Speaker 4: in my goodness, is it it's fifteen or sixteen years

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Speaker 4: at this point.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And so then when I when I approached him a

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Speaker 4: little over eight years ago, he thought he had gotten

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Speaker 4: rid of me, and lo and behold, I said, wait.

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Speaker 3: A minute, I got this idea. You want to you

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Speaker 3: want to come join me.

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Speaker 5: It's like a she came back.

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Speaker 1: Ye, he said that away, and then she comes back

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Speaker 1: and here we are.

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Speaker 2: So did you decide to approach him with this particular

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Speaker 2: subject because you knew that he that this was work

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Speaker 2: he's done in the past, and he was very familiar

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Speaker 2: with this object.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely.

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Speaker 4: I knew after reading those La Times articles and just

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Speaker 4: sort of thinking about this that it was going to

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Speaker 4: require going into the medical examiner coroner's office and dealing

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Speaker 4: with government bureaucracies around death.

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Speaker 3: And I knew the.

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Speaker 4: Only sociologist who happened to write on that subject, So

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Speaker 4: it seemed like a kind of obvious new brainer as

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Speaker 4: a collaboration. I'm not sure that I can speak that

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Speaker 4: it was that much of a no brainer for Stefan,

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Speaker 4: but it was for me.

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Speaker 2: That this is cool. So you guys, I know that

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Speaker 2: in the book you follow for individuals that went unclaimed,

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Speaker 2: and obviously you kind of had to go backwards because

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Speaker 2: you didn't you didn't know them when they were alive.

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Speaker 2: So I'm curious how that process went. How did you

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Speaker 2: pick these specific four people, and then how did you

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Speaker 2: because your book took almost eight years to research, correct, like,

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Speaker 2: what was what was the process of not only finding

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Speaker 2: these people but then backtracking their life.

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Speaker 3: Stephan, do you want to take this one?

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Speaker 1: So this is where we're complimentary. So I have a

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Speaker 1: lot of experience with medical examiners and bureaucracies, but Pamela

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Speaker 1: is really good at cold calling, so she can't. So

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Speaker 1: once we had a name of somebody, and we had

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Speaker 1: I mean, so we're dealing with it from a research

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Speaker 1: perspective or from a reporting perspective. This is not an

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Speaker 1: easy project because we're dealing with people relatives who have said, no,

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Speaker 1: we don't want to organize the funeral, so are they

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Speaker 1: willing to talk to us? But what Tamala strength is

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Speaker 1: is like she's really good at cold calling. So we

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Speaker 1: have a name, and we go to a neighborhood in

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Speaker 1: the suburbia Los Angeles, and she goes and goes door

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Speaker 1: by door or talking to the neighbors while I'm like

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Speaker 1: in the car slinking away because I don't want to

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Speaker 1: deal times.

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Speaker 5: Oh no, but if they open the door.

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Speaker 1: But of course that's what we won't some so that's where.

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Speaker 5: We're very complimentary.

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Speaker 1: Pamala has no problem doing that, and I have no

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Speaker 1: problem sitting down with a pathologist or or talking to

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Speaker 1: the scene investigations, which, by the way, in my book,

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Speaker 1: people who work in the Medical Examiner's office they're heroes.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 1: Every time you read something in a newspaper about a

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Speaker 1: shooting or some somebody has to deal with the body,

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Speaker 1: and it's then that who have to deal with the bodies.

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Speaker 1: They're really doing extraordinary important work. And we have a

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Speaker 1: tremendous admiration for the difficulty of their job, but also

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Speaker 1: for the professionalism.

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Speaker 5: That they bring to their to their work.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's not one we set out to do

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Speaker 1: in this book, but it's one of the things. You

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Speaker 1: became strong, very impressed with the work that I've seen

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Speaker 1: investigators and pathologists do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate you saying that, because it is really hard.

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Speaker 2: I interned there for months while I was in PA school,

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Speaker 2: and it's hard to see people die at the hands

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Speaker 2: of another especially, but just in general, all of these

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Speaker 2: people that are there, Like at the hospital, it's different

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Speaker 2: because a lot of people were sick and they kind

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Speaker 2: of knew that it was coming, maybe, but these are

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Speaker 2: people in car accidents, people that were murdered, little kids.

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Speaker 2: It takes an emotional toll on you, and people don't

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Speaker 2: realize that.

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Speaker 5: No, there's just no good stories.

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Speaker 1: It's there's anybody who ends up in the medical examiner's

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Speaker 1: office something went really badly wrong, and it's often the

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Speaker 1: worst strategy that you can imagine as a parent, as

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Speaker 1: a sibling, as a as just just in general. And

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Speaker 1: so they deal with this and it's relentless. It's just

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Speaker 1: you know, it's every day brings new challenges like this.

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Speaker 1: So we have tremendous admiration for the difficulty of that

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Speaker 1: of that job and the at the care that they

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Speaker 1: bring to the dead investigation process.

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Speaker 2: So you so you actually went to people, see I

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Speaker 2: wouldgree with you, Stephan, like in the corner hiding, because

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Speaker 2: I don't I wouldn't want to do that either. But

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Speaker 2: that's cool that you felt comfortable enough to not only

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Speaker 2: to talk to just strangers and just knock on their door,

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Speaker 2: but I would be kind of scared that they'd be

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Speaker 2: like that bitch, I hate her, like I don't want

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Speaker 2: to talk about her anymore, or something like that. So

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Speaker 2: it's cool that that you had the guts to do that,

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Speaker 2: because maybe that's how the book came together.

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Speaker 5: We got that reaction too, I mean, we got the whole.

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Speaker 1: Rage of I know.

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Speaker 4: No, no, no, Some people in my life say, oh, no,

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Speaker 4: I taught you, I.

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Speaker 1: Taught you about the deceit, like we don't want to

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Speaker 1: talk to the deceit that.

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Speaker 2: No, Like yeah, I'm just saying, like, if they didn't

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Speaker 2: want to pick their body up and stuff, it could

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Speaker 2: be because they had bad blood with them before they

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Speaker 2: they died, and they they would be mad that you

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Speaker 2: were even wanting to talk about it with them.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: No, and they know that.

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Speaker 3: We got that, definitely, we got that.

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Speaker 1: We got somebody vented for more than an hour about

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Speaker 1: how bad to decend.

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Speaker 5: It to us.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it. That's interesting, And you do think about

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Speaker 2: that because I don't have too much experience with death

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Speaker 2: in my personal life, but you know, my grandparents and

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Speaker 2: one of my uncles there's lines at the funeral home

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Speaker 2: for them to visit their bodies. And I've heard stories

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Speaker 2: from funeral directors too that even if someone does claim

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Speaker 2: the body and and get them a funeral, that nobody

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Speaker 2: shows up. It's it's just crazy that all of us

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Speaker 2: could really end up in that situation, which does bring

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Speaker 2: me to my next question of how how you you

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Speaker 2: You've said in the book that it could be It

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Speaker 2: could go across all socioeconomic ranges, and it could be

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Speaker 2: wealthy to poor. It could be any anyway, famous not famous.

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Speaker 2: What what if? What do you think is the main

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Speaker 2: factor that causes bodies to be unclaimed? Is it financial

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Speaker 2: or is it more interpersonal relationships?

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Speaker 4: So you know, there's a number of factors. It isn't

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Speaker 4: one thing that we can point to. However, you know,

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Speaker 4: cost is is a considerable factor here. You know, the

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Speaker 4: average funeral in the United States is over eight thousand dollars.

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Speaker 4: That's not an insignificant amount of money, right.

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Speaker 2: I also think that figure is extremely low. I was

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Speaker 2: thinking more like twenty thousand dollars to be honest with you, Like, yeah.

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Speaker 4: I mean that could probably you know, you would of course,

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Speaker 4: you know this being an average, I can imagine on

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Speaker 4: the coasts it would be a lot more expensive. We

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Speaker 4: know in Los Angeles it's more expensive than that. But

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Speaker 4: you know, you can also find low cost cremations. You

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Speaker 4: can put together burial packages of your own rather than

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Speaker 4: picking one of a private funeral home a flat package,

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Speaker 4: so you can sort of put things together. There's ways

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Speaker 4: that people can get creative. Although you know, any amount

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Speaker 4: of money if you haven't been saving for this, and

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Speaker 4: a sudden death occurs is going to be an unexpected expense,

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Speaker 4: So financial considerations are absolutely important. That said, what I

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Speaker 4: would probably tell folks is that more often than not,

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Speaker 4: the County of Los Angeles, in the cases that we

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Speaker 4: observed found next of kin, they located a legal next

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Speaker 4: of kin, and those rel relatives chose not to claim,

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Speaker 4: often because the ties had already withered, maybe years ago,

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Speaker 4: decades ago. We found widespread and extreme estrangement among family

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Speaker 4: members throughout throughout the county, right and throughout different economic strata.

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Speaker 3: Stepan, did you want to ask you did a great job?

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Speaker 4: So yeah, so, I mean so cost family estrangement. And

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Speaker 4: one thing I do also want to say, if I

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Speaker 4: think back to the example right that I told you

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Speaker 4: of how I came into the story and thinking about

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Speaker 4: the Mosque community and how they rallied together in order

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Speaker 4: to prevent.

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Speaker 3: Sister Sherry from going unclaimed.

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Speaker 4: There are also a lot of situations in which we're

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Speaker 4: not living or necessarily close to our legal next to

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Speaker 4: kin that might not be how we've we've arranged our lives. Right,

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Speaker 4: we have these chosen families, we have close friendships and

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Speaker 4: what we were.

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Speaker 3: I'll admit a little bit surprised.

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Speaker 4: I was surprised when I was in the coroner's office

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Speaker 4: and observing the county to find that those people are

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Speaker 4: not included.

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Speaker 3: They're not allowed to claim.

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Speaker 4: Now you can go to court to get the right

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Speaker 4: to claim, but it's very rare that people will do that.

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Speaker 4: In the form that you have to sign basically declares

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Speaker 4: I know that there is no other family. So if

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Speaker 4: the county finds other family, you can see there's there's

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Speaker 4: a bit of a legal tussle that could develop, and

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Speaker 4: so a lot of friends and chosen family were discouraged

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Speaker 4: from claiming.

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Speaker 1: So what that means is that the person that the

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Speaker 1: medical examiner asks to organize the funeral might be the

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Speaker 1: wrong person for the job.

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Speaker 5: It might be.

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Speaker 1: Somebody who is legally tied to the decendant, but actually

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Speaker 1: it does we have a good relationship with the Senate,

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Speaker 1: and other people who are available might.

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Speaker 5: Not be asked to organize the funeral.

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Speaker 1: So some of that is a mismatch between who is

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Speaker 1: considered to be the legal next of kinnan, who is

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Speaker 1: the person most likely to organize a funeral and take

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Speaker 1: on the burden for that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, We ran into that in the hospital too with

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Speaker 2: because we weren't allowed to do an autopsy unless we

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Speaker 2: had we had a signed consent form from the legal

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Speaker 2: next of kin. And there would always be circumstances where

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Speaker 2: there would be a cousin that really was the best

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Speaker 2: friend of the person or something, but she was married

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Speaker 2: even though they were a strange, she was legally married,

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Speaker 2: or had a kid, even if she didn't talk to

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Speaker 2: the kid. And you know, you have to follow those

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Speaker 2: rules of they're pretty stringent with it with autopsy. I

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Speaker 2: guess they are when it comes to the unclaimed bodies too.

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Speaker 2: When when the body so I don't really know what

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00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:43,720
Speaker 2: happens I send the body, you know, I said seven

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Speaker 2: days after it would be in the hospital and then

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Speaker 2: would go to the emmy's office. And I know when

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Speaker 2: I rotated at the emmy's office there were several boxes

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Speaker 2: of cremated remains in the morgue just sitting there. Is

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Speaker 2: there a timeline, I guess this varies from jurisdiction totiction,

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Speaker 2: But is there an average timeline where those cremative remains

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Speaker 2: stay in the medical examiner's office, Like do they just

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Speaker 2: stay there forever? Or is there a point where they

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Speaker 2: get rid of them and do something with them.

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Speaker 4: So Los Angeles is interesting because there's one agency that's

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Speaker 4: allowed to inter in that grave, that common grave or

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00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:27,080
Speaker 4: the potter's field unclaimed cremains, and that is the Office

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Speaker 4: of Decedent Affairs. So Los Angeles has three different county

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Speaker 4: bureaucracies that are involved in death, and that would be

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Speaker 4: the Medical Examiner Corners. They're going to handle the suspicious cases,

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Speaker 4: the sudden deaths, right the ones that you've talked about

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Speaker 4: with Stefan. And then you also have the Office of

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Speaker 4: Deceited Affairs, and so they're gathering and they're collecting bodies

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Speaker 4: from more mundane deaths, hospital deaths, nursing homes, residences where

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00:18:51,880 --> 00:18:54,679
Speaker 4: a doctor will sign a death certificate. And then you

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00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:57,520
Speaker 4: have the Public Administrator's Office, which doesn't actually deal with

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00:18:57,560 --> 00:18:59,600
Speaker 4: any of the bodies, but does handle the estates and

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Speaker 4: checking next of kin in many cases across the two agencies.

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Speaker 4: So right, so you have these three different agencies, but

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Speaker 4: what happened in the Medical Examiner's Office is you know,

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Speaker 4: or in funeral homes, you also have a lot of

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00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:15,159
Speaker 4: abandoned ashes. In funeral homes, they'll be transferred. It'll all

355
00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:18,240
Speaker 4: get transferred to the transferred to the Office of Deceited Affairs,

356
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Speaker 4: and then at the end of the third year of

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00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:24,480
Speaker 4: storing those cremines, the County of Los Angeles to the

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Speaker 4: Office of Deceited Affairs will combine the cremaines and inter

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00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:30,760
Speaker 4: them in a master common grave.

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Speaker 1: So what that really means is that there is like

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Speaker 1: this little building next to the County Crematorium that contains

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00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:42,400
Speaker 1: the cremains of about five thousand people in little boxes,

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00:19:42,840 --> 00:19:45,960
Speaker 1: all next back next to one another, because they keep

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00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:48,680
Speaker 1: them for three years. So there's year one, year, two,

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00:19:48,760 --> 00:19:53,159
Speaker 1: year three, all about thousand, five hund two thousand of

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Speaker 1: those boxes, and then the family has three years the

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00:19:57,040 --> 00:20:00,159
Speaker 1: time to retrieve the ashes. But not many are of

368
00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:02,760
Speaker 1: them are going to do that, but the county tries

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Speaker 1: to make it as easy as possible or give the

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Speaker 1: family as much time as possible to retrieve first the

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Speaker 1: body and then the crebates.

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Speaker 2: That's that's interesting. So they're basically saying like, hey, we

373
00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:22,400
Speaker 2: took care of all this, we paid for it, all

374
00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:23,840
Speaker 2: you got to do is come pick it up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really nominal fee, and the fee can

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00:20:27,560 --> 00:20:30,360
Speaker 1: be waived because they really you know, they don't want

377
00:20:30,359 --> 00:20:33,720
Speaker 1: to put those bodies in the mass grave, but if

378
00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:34,880
Speaker 1: they need to, then need to.

379
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Speaker 2: Do you know, percentage wise, how many bodies when they

380
00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:42,600
Speaker 2: get to that point or like remains are actually getting

381
00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:46,160
Speaker 2: picked up or there, do people come and get them

382
00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:47,959
Speaker 2: or it's just like not really that common.

383
00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:51,080
Speaker 5: It's not that common.

384
00:20:51,160 --> 00:20:56,560
Speaker 1: It's like between ten fifteen percent. I mean, based on

385
00:20:56,680 --> 00:21:00,480
Speaker 1: our records, you know, based on looking through the the

386
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:03,680
Speaker 1: ledgers of the office of the Seat in the fairs,

387
00:21:03,760 --> 00:21:07,239
Speaker 1: about ten to fifty percent, but the overwhelming majority just

388
00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:09,240
Speaker 1: gathers dust on the shelves.

389
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Speaker 2: It's really interesting because doing this for so I mean,

390
00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:16,080
Speaker 2: I was in a hospital that we had like five

391
00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:18,720
Speaker 2: to six hundred deaths a year, right, so I was constantly,

392
00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:23,000
Speaker 2: like every day dealing releasing bodies to funeral homes. And

393
00:21:24,520 --> 00:21:28,040
Speaker 2: usually in most cases, and this is what you're talking about,

394
00:21:28,040 --> 00:21:30,679
Speaker 2: the sociology portion of it, When a person dies, the

395
00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:34,879
Speaker 2: funeral home might call us right away, before we even

396
00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:38,119
Speaker 2: hear that the body died. The person might still be

397
00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:41,640
Speaker 2: on the floor in the hospital. Because that's what happens

398
00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:44,800
Speaker 2: in families and people that are when you've loved ones

399
00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:48,240
Speaker 2: by your side and everything. It would be even very

400
00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:51,560
Speaker 2: unusual to not hear anything within twenty four hours, Like

401
00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:53,040
Speaker 2: if we had a body in there for a day,

402
00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:55,240
Speaker 2: we'd be like, all right, like what's this person still

403
00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:55,760
Speaker 2: doing here?

404
00:21:55,840 --> 00:21:56,040
Speaker 6: You know?

405
00:21:57,359 --> 00:22:00,879
Speaker 2: And that actually happened with Marilyn Monroe. She was unclaimed

406
00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:04,679
Speaker 2: for over twenty four hours, and then finally Joe DiMaggio,

407
00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:07,960
Speaker 2: which was her ex, came in and said, all right,

408
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:09,639
Speaker 2: I'm gonna take her and I'll pay for her to

409
00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:11,879
Speaker 2: get a funeral. But like, nobody's allowed to come to

410
00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:22,120
Speaker 2: this funeral because they're responsible for her death. Every week

411
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:24,280
Speaker 2: on Mother Knows Death, we talk about all of these

412
00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:26,480
Speaker 2: different stories that relates to posts that we have in

413
00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:28,800
Speaker 2: the grocer Room. And I think you guys would really

414
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:31,280
Speaker 2: love it if you joined right now. You could join

415
00:22:31,359 --> 00:22:33,920
Speaker 2: for only five ninety nine a month, and you get

416
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:39,320
Speaker 2: to see multiple posts a week. We have thousands of posts, pictures,

417
00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:42,200
Speaker 2: videos over the course of years. When did we start

418
00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:45,480
Speaker 2: the gross Room in twenty twenty twenty nineteen, Yeah, And

419
00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:48,199
Speaker 2: you can see all the way back and it's just

420
00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:53,400
Speaker 2: really awesome. If you have an interest in any particular topic,

421
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:56,119
Speaker 2: you could search by the title, like I was just

422
00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 2: telling you about the guy that got impelled with the

423
00:22:58,920 --> 00:23:03,080
Speaker 2: garden flag, and that is called damage by decoration. But

424
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:05,840
Speaker 2: you also could just search like today, I didn't remember

425
00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:07,919
Speaker 2: what I called the post, so I just searched garden

426
00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:11,399
Speaker 2: flag there and lawnmower. If you search lawnmower, all the

427
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:15,119
Speaker 2: lawnmower accidents will come up. So it's it's really awesome

428
00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:16,960
Speaker 2: when we have a great group of people in the

429
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:19,840
Speaker 2: gross room. So only five ninety nine a month. Yeah,

430
00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:27,440
Speaker 2: so visit the grossroom dot com for more info. Did

431
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 2: you when you guys were doing this research, did you

432
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:34,159
Speaker 2: come across any like really crazy stories or things that

433
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 2: shocked you to how this person got to this point

434
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:39,879
Speaker 2: in their life where they had nobody to come and

435
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:40,680
Speaker 2: claim them.

436
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:43,399
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there are a lot of stories that

437
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 4: we encountered.

438
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 3: So we do write about four.

439
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:48,000
Speaker 4: People right in the in the book and depth, but

440
00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:52,159
Speaker 4: we came across more than six hundred cases in varying

441
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:55,399
Speaker 4: levels of depth as we were doing our research and

442
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:56,320
Speaker 4: really looking at them.

443
00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:58,600
Speaker 3: And you know, some of the stories.

444
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 4: Are really tragic people who you know, there was there

445
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 4: was one story of a woman I'll never forget and

446
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:09,399
Speaker 4: she she died in her car.

447
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:12,240
Speaker 3: I believe it was from a drug overdose.

448
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 4: And but as you sort of start trying to uncover

449
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:19,440
Speaker 4: her story, right, a lot of what we're trying to

450
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 4: do here is tell stories of people who would otherwise

451
00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:25,439
Speaker 4: be forgotten. And as we started to learn about her life,

452
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:27,719
Speaker 4: we found out that, you know, when she was a

453
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:31,159
Speaker 4: young child, her mother had committed suicide in front of

454
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:35,159
Speaker 4: her god, her father had been in prison, and she

455
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 4: had grown up in the foster system, never really kind

456
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,159
Speaker 4: of getting the stability right that that a young child needs.

457
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 4: She had a child herself, but she was divorced and

458
00:24:46,040 --> 00:24:48,120
Speaker 4: that child was living with the father. At one point

459
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 4: in her life, she actually changed her name to pussy

460
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 4: Cat legally went to court and changed her name to

461
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 4: pussy Cat. And we talked to her her ex husband.

462
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:58,920
Speaker 4: I talked to her ex husband, and he cared for her,

463
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 4: but you know, give and the strict laws are on disposition.

464
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:02,960
Speaker 3: He didn't get involved.

465
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:05,880
Speaker 4: And so that one really always stuck me, struck out,

466
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 4: struck me as really tragic of you know, sort of

467
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:12,000
Speaker 4: feeling like this was somebody who from the very beginning,

468
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 4: you know, the things were not on her side. Then

469
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 4: there are some sort of stories that just they shouldn't

470
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:23,760
Speaker 4: They shouldn't have been unclaimed if you think about it

471
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:25,639
Speaker 4: in a kind of logical sense. So I'm thinking about your

472
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 4: question earlier around you know, are there wealthy people who

473
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:32,760
Speaker 4: go unclaimed? And there was one man who had over

474
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 4: a million dollars in his bank account when he died,

475
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:40,200
Speaker 4: and he did have a will, but he the county

476
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:42,880
Speaker 4: was hired by his brother, who wanted nothing to do

477
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,919
Speaker 4: with the disposition, to take care of the cremation. The

478
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:48,480
Speaker 4: brother got the check for over a million dollars, but

479
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:49,640
Speaker 4: he didn't show.

480
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 3: Up for the at sea burial.

481
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:55,879
Speaker 4: So you know, you sort of see a lot of

482
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 4: different and both of those cases just have always kind

483
00:25:58,240 --> 00:25:58,919
Speaker 4: of stuck with me.

484
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really sad to hear that people are in

485
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,200
Speaker 2: You look at this person that's an older adult that's

486
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:08,919
Speaker 2: dead and a life of drugs and all that, But

487
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:10,880
Speaker 2: then when you go and think about them as a child,

488
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 2: because ultimately, like all people were always somebody's baby, right,

489
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 2: and just it's so sad to hear that any child

490
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 2: would have to go through something like that. And eventually

491
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 2: all children grow up and then they're going to be

492
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 2: a product of whatever they grew up around. It's just

493
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 2: it's terrible. But then on the other hand, like, have

494
00:26:33,400 --> 00:26:38,439
Speaker 2: you ever heard any stories from people, even the family members,

495
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 2: talking about this people and saying that this person was

496
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:44,240
Speaker 2: actually a really terrible person, and I could totally see

497
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 2: why nobody wanted anything to do with them when they

498
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 2: were dying.

499
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:55,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, we heard lots of family members who told us,

500
00:26:55,680 --> 00:27:01,679
Speaker 4: you know, stories of abuse, abandonment, struggles, you know, for

501
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 4: decades with a sibling for example, that they had hadn't

502
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 4: gotten along in decades, you know, and looking at those

503
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:13,159
Speaker 4: corner case records, there's little little snippets of information that

504
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:17,440
Speaker 4: get recorded in the coroner files about explanations for why

505
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 4: people choose not to claim. And often you do see,

506
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 4: you know, stories of families that have been torn apart

507
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 4: by drugs or poverty. Puts a tremendous amount of strain

508
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:34,200
Speaker 4: on families, right, and we ask so much of families

509
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:36,439
Speaker 4: to sort of do it all in this country without

510
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 4: a real social safety net. And so, yeah, there were

511
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 4: there were some people who you can imagine maybe they

512
00:27:43,080 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 4: they'd always been difficult to get along with, and then

513
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 4: there were other people where you could sort of see

514
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:54,400
Speaker 4: the way that over time, their social relations became strained

515
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:57,239
Speaker 4: as a consequence of the struggles that they faced. And

516
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 4: also just as people are getting older, social circles are shrinking, right,

517
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:05,040
Speaker 4: And so we have one case that we read about

518
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 4: in the book You David, where he had literally the

519
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:11,399
Speaker 4: sort of radius in which he lived his life just

520
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 4: got smaller and smaller over time, to the point that

521
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 4: you know, he went from having a car to then

522
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 4: having a bicycle, to then just walking and then struggling

523
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 4: to kind of walk around his apartment complex. So that

524
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:25,439
Speaker 4: that was also a way I think about It's not

525
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 4: it's just sort of like the way that we in

526
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 4: America have allowed people to grow older alone.

527
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because I remember my one grandmom died

528
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 2: when she was like ninety nine. She was a couple

529
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 2: months short of her hundredth birthday, And I remember talking

530
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 2: to her in the last couple of years or her

531
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 2: life and her saying that everybody that she knew is dead, her,

532
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 2: all her siblings, her, even some of her children's husbands

533
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 2: were all dead. And I mean, luckily for her, she

534
00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 2: had kids, so you know, she had strong support system.

535
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:04,560
Speaker 2: But I imagine that it happens sometimes that people that

536
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 2: choose not to have children or their children have passed.

537
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 2: That that could become a real issue when even everyone

538
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 2: that you've always hung around and friends wise are gone

539
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 2: as well.

540
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, or the kids care, I mean some kids don't

541
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: care anymore. We see cases of people have basically have

542
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: been forgotten in the nursing home. You know, they haven't

543
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: seen visitors in years and so, and when they die,

544
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 1: there's like, you know, they've been I mean, sociologists have

545
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 1: this notion of the social death, where you're basically being

546
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: treated as if you're dead while you're still alive, but

547
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 1: people are talking about you in the past tense. So

548
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 1: you can see that in some of those situations where

549
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: people are warehoused away and they're already written out of

550
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: the of the interactions and the society even though they're

551
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 1: still biologically alive.

552
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 2: Do you feel as if unclaimed bodies are increasing every year?

553
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 6: Yeah?

554
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.

555
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 2: Can you attribute that to like, is it because people

556
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 2: are just being pumped full of drugs and kept alive longer?

557
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 2: Or is it it is you think a sociological thing.

558
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: We think it's more due to widespread estrangement and social isolation.

559
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 5: So they're almost like the canaries in the coal mine unclaimed.

560
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 1: It takes a lot to get to the state where

561
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 1: your relatives are, you know, unwilling to bury you. But

562
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 1: there's a lot of factors that come together that foster

563
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 1: social isolation. So it's sort of like an extreme indicator

564
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: of you know, a whole bunch of processes and a

565
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 1: whole bunch of policies, a lack of a social safety

566
00:30:55,200 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 1: in that widespread estrangement, breakdowns ofaily. It's a whole bunch

567
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 1: of these factors going together, and that leads to people

568
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 1: going up claimed. And of course some people.

569
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 5: Outlive all their relatives.

570
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 1: But you know, you always find a relative. It doesn't

571
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:14,560
Speaker 1: mean that if you're to be old, doesn't mean that

572
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:20,240
Speaker 1: you should be alone and isolated. All the medical examplers

573
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: or a genealogist will always find a relative. If there

574
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:26,719
Speaker 1: is a big est state, if there's a lot of money,

575
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: hair hunters will come in and they will go called

576
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: through all the records.

577
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 5: Until they come up with an entire family tree.

578
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: So there always are relatives. The question is are these

579
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 1: relatives always going to care?

580
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:47,240
Speaker 2: Have you ever interviewed a family that expressed regret for

581
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 2: not making things right before the person died and not

582
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 2: claiming their body and doing the right thing for them

583
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 2: when especially if it was like a sibling or a

584
00:31:57,640 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 2: parent or something like that.

585
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 4: Nothing specific is coming to mind that we directly spoke

586
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 4: with family members.

587
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 3: I will say that the people.

588
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 4: Who work for the county, So there's a there's a

589
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 4: wonderful human being, mister Craig Garnett that works at the

590
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 4: County Crematorium and Los Angeles, and he's been there for decades,

591
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:25,120
Speaker 4: and you know, he'll tell you stories the family members

592
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 4: who come by and they find out decades later that

593
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 4: they had a loved one or a family member who

594
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 4: was cremated and buried at this county cemetery. And so

595
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 4: in those cases, you can imagine, you know, maybe they

596
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 4: found out just so much later than they would have

597
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 4: been had an opportunity to claim. And so I think

598
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 4: that there's you know what, Stephan, what did Craig call it?

599
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 3: It was bitter sweet.

600
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, So there's it was bitter sweet that he saw

601
00:32:57,520 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 4: with the families because on one hand, you know, they've

602
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 4: lost this opportunity to to a funeral or to claim

603
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 4: their family member, but they also get closure, and so

604
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 4: they get an opportunity to sort of close the story

605
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 4: and understand where they're loved one.

606
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 1: So this is more in situations where relatives don't know

607
00:33:16,920 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: what happened to their loved one.

608
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 5: So, you know, being la we have lots of people

609
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 5: coming in to try to.

610
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: Break two in the movie industry or the music industry,

611
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: and then they might lose track with their whole communities

612
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: or their migrants. And so some people go on a

613
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: search to fill out the family tree, what happened to

614
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 1: Uncle Tony, And then they find out that a person

615
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 1: is buried in the.

616
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 5: Crematorium.

617
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 1: It is sorry in boil Heights, in the Potter's Field,

618
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: and so those people feel a sense of bittersweetness and

619
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: the sense that they finally find out what's about the

620
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 1: relative that they've been wondering for a long time. And

621
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: at the same time they what they find is that

622
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 1: the person is dead and buried in a mass grave.

623
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 2: I was looking up some stuff yesterday and I came

624
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:15,879
Speaker 2: across a website. Not I don't know if Philadelphia has one,

625
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 2: because that's that's the Medical Examiner EI interned out. I

626
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 2: don't know if they have a specific website for this,

627
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 2: but it was another County close to Philadelphia. They actually

628
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:29,840
Speaker 2: have all of their unclaimed people listed on the website

629
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:32,960
Speaker 2: and you could contact them about it, which I thought

630
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:35,480
Speaker 2: was pretty cool because you don't have to make any

631
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 2: weird calls. You could just look on your own. But

632
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:41,360
Speaker 2: I know, I know that that is an issue because

633
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 2: people don't people don't realize that a person has died.

634
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:49,040
Speaker 2: I think we did just talk about a story a

635
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:51,359
Speaker 2: couple of months ago that might have happened in an

636
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:53,960
Speaker 2: LA but somewhere in California where they're like a mom

637
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:58,959
Speaker 2: lost her son and there was something about the being

638
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:05,000
Speaker 2: unidentified and unclaimed because of you know, the families not nearby.

639
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 2: They weren't able to get a hold of anybody. And

640
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 2: this kid was there and they didn't know that he

641
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:12,840
Speaker 2: was dead. And you know that that happens, especially with

642
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 2: kids that are on drugs, or teenagers or young adults

643
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 2: that are on drugs and kind of lose connection with

644
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 2: their family. So are you guys supportive of these websites

645
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 2: that try to connect family members with their their deceased

646
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:28,760
Speaker 2: loved ones.

647
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:34,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely so, I should say. You know, in most cases,

648
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 4: the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office was able to locate

649
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:39,359
Speaker 4: next of kin. There are situations in which they're not

650
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 4: or they've located a next of kin who's a legal

651
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:46,879
Speaker 4: next of kin. But maybe then they stop, right because

652
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:48,360
Speaker 4: then they've fulfilled their due diligence.

653
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 3: They're not going to go.

654
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 4: To the entire family tree and notify everybody. So if

655
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:56,400
Speaker 4: within a family you have estrangement among different sectors of

656
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 4: the family and one person knows but hasn't told the

657
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:02,240
Speaker 4: other person, also be a situation. Right we're decades later

658
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 4: or years later, somebody has found out that they lost

659
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:08,919
Speaker 4: a family member. But in terms of you know, we act,

660
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:13,280
Speaker 4: absolutely think there needs to be more public attention obviously

661
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 4: to this topic, but also counties and local government officials

662
00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:22,879
Speaker 4: making the names publicly available so that people can, you know,

663
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 4: before let's say, before somebody is going to be cremated

664
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 4: or interred, so that family members can can track them

665
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 4: down to try to, you know, step in to get

666
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,319
Speaker 4: some sense of understanding or closure in many cases, so

667
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 4: for years Los Angeles did not make the names of

668
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 4: the unclaimed publicly available, and there was a reporter at

669
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 4: the Los Angeles Times, John Sloys, who's now in representing

670
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,799
Speaker 4: the News Guild Union and he had really gone to

671
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:55,359
Speaker 4: a ton of effort to get access to those handwritten

672
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 4: registers that list every single person in Los Angeles County

673
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 4: who's been cremated or buried since eighteen ninety sixty, focused

674
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 4: on one year and he took photos of these registers

675
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:08,920
Speaker 4: on his iPhone and then in his free time, digitized

676
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 4: the names and that was the first time that these

677
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 4: names had been made public.

678
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 3: He put them on the Los Angeles Times website. That

679
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:18,120
Speaker 3: was the first time. And through that kind of pressure.

680
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:23,239
Speaker 4: Of people, journalists, researchers like ourselves, there's been some some

681
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 4: greater pressure on the county and so now they do

682
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:29,279
Speaker 4: put names. But the last I checked, it's only up

683
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:32,279
Speaker 4: to twenty twenty, so they haven't been putting names from

684
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:33,280
Speaker 4: the last few years.

685
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's another thing is I was reading this

686
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 2: article from the Philadelphia Inquire about last year in the

687
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 2: Medical Examiner's Office of Philadelphia they were really looking at

688
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:48,720
Speaker 2: because there's so many people that are considered to be unidentified,

689
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 2: and that's the problem because they lack resources, especially after

690
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:56,400
Speaker 2: the pandemic and everything like that, they're just like behind.

691
00:37:57,040 --> 00:38:01,440
Speaker 2: So these people are they're identify, but then they're also

692
00:38:01,840 --> 00:38:04,359
Speaker 2: unclaimed because they don't really know who they are. But

693
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:06,799
Speaker 2: maybe if they knew exactly who they were, they would

694
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:10,319
Speaker 2: be able to get somebody to actually claim them. But

695
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 2: they're the Emmy's office. I always say this, it's like

696
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 2: this one. It's it's the same with autopsy in the

697
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:19,520
Speaker 2: hospital too. Like the people are dead, they're not paying

698
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:22,839
Speaker 2: health insurance. They don't care. It's like once you die,

699
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 2: they don't care to give money anymore. So you're working

700
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 2: on like a really small lack of resources to do

701
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 2: all of this stuff.

702
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:34,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have a chapter in the book called the

703
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:34,800
Speaker 3: Dead don't.

704
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 2: Vote exactly right.

705
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 4: She gets it right, which gets it this notion, And

706
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 4: so that's why, you know, the dead need the living right,

707
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:44,560
Speaker 4: the unclaimed need us to advocate on their behalf right.

708
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 4: So so putting pressure on local government officials being willing to,

709
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 4: you know, put more resources towards these these these departments

710
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 4: that are overstretched and they're staffed are often burnt out

711
00:38:57,719 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 4: for all the reasons we talked about earlier in terms

712
00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 4: of the difficulty.

713
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 3: Of the work.

714
00:39:01,520 --> 00:39:05,239
Speaker 4: Now, Los Angeles County over the last several years has

715
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 4: actually done a fantastic job of reducing the number of unidentified.

716
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 4: So when we talk about you know, sixteen hundred people

717
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 4: going unclaimed and being interred in that common grave in

718
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 4: Boyle Heights, maybe maybe a dozen or less will be

719
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 4: unidentified in any given year.

720
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:25,000
Speaker 2: Now, that's really wow, that's awesome.

721
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, I will admit this because what

722
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:31,959
Speaker 4: I knew about forensics was probably limited to television until

723
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 4: I got.

724
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 3: Into this project.

725
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:37,320
Speaker 4: So I'm speaking for myself, not my my brilliant co author,

726
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:40,400
Speaker 4: but I really thought, oh, they'll do DNA on everybody,

727
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 4: and no they don't. They don't, right, And so primarily

728
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:51,720
Speaker 4: identifications are made through databases and just matching pictures, matching

729
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 4: driver's license to the database. And so you know, there

730
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:58,840
Speaker 4: are people who live off the grid who you know,

731
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,920
Speaker 4: or make a a tremendous effort to not be found,

732
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 4: to not be discovered. So that also could make it

733
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:07,840
Speaker 4: a little trickier to be identified in certain places that

734
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 4: wouldn't have the same kind of full time staff or

735
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:12,439
Speaker 4: resources the way that Los Angeles does.

736
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great because I think last year in Philadelphia alone,

737
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:20,839
Speaker 2: there was fifteen that were that were unidentified. And it's

738
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 2: interesting because I mean, La County is so much bigger

739
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:28,239
Speaker 2: than Philadelphia. So I mean, it's it's great that you

740
00:40:28,280 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 2: guys have the resources to do that. I know that

741
00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 2: there's you talked about this annual memorial to commemorate the

742
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:38,879
Speaker 2: dead in La County. Can you tell us a little

743
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:39,440
Speaker 2: bit about that.

744
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 3: I'm gonna let Steffine talk.

745
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:49,360
Speaker 1: So, so this is one of the of the very moving,

746
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:54,560
Speaker 1: most moving ceremonies I've actually ever attended in my life.

747
00:40:55,160 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 6: So what happens is that the county gathers these cremains

748
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 6: from three years ago and at some point, you know,

749
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 6: the shells are full and they need to do something

750
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 6: with it, and so they put them in.

751
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: A common grave, which they create a.

752
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 5: Couple of days before the ceremony.

753
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 1: And from a county's perspective, this could be enough, you know,

754
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 1: this could be the end of the story. But they

755
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 1: actually decide to add so dignity to it by organizing

756
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 1: this interfait ceremony run by the.

757
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 5: Chaplain of one of the local.

758
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:40,320
Speaker 1: Hospitals, and he brings in a whole bunch of religious

759
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 1: leaders of different faiths, including if we can find them,

760
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:49,719
Speaker 1: a Native American healer, and they, based on their tradition,

761
00:41:50,680 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 1: welcome the debt and send them over to the afterlife.

762
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 1: And the event has been open to the public, although

763
00:41:58,320 --> 00:41:59,840
Speaker 1: it was closed down during COVID, but.

764
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,799
Speaker 5: Trying to open it up again. And I hope based

765
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 5: on how.

766
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:06,279
Speaker 1: Our book, they will get much more interesting in this

767
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 1: event as well. And so basically, you're standing shoulder to

768
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:15,520
Speaker 1: shoulder with all these angelinos that you don't know anything about.

769
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:18,760
Speaker 1: You're strangers to one another, and the people being buried

770
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 1: are strangers too, because you know, we don't know their stories.

771
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 7: And it's such a moving event to show up and

772
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:32,799
Speaker 7: take on the mourning of these people who have been

773
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:34,319
Speaker 7: forgotten by their relatives.

774
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: And for just half an hour that the ceremony last

775
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 1: people come all together. We become like a surrogate family

776
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:44,640
Speaker 1: for these people being buried.

777
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:46,720
Speaker 5: So it's it's deeply touching.

778
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that really is nice, because like you're saying, they

779
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 2: don't really have to do that, and it's it's it's

780
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 2: like very respectful. I think that that's really awesome. So

781
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 2: what's next for you guys? Like your book comes out today,

782
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:04,720
Speaker 2: I know that it's like going to be a crazy

783
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:08,040
Speaker 2: couple weeks and then what do you what has this

784
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 2: changed your trajectory of your life in any way about

785
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:13,320
Speaker 2: what you wanted to do next.

786
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:16,760
Speaker 4: Well, that depends on how many people find a book

787
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 4: today and in the coming weeks.

788
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:23,400
Speaker 3: It could it could you know, the thing.

789
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:25,759
Speaker 4: They never tell you about writing a book is that

790
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 4: you're going to have to promote it. So so we

791
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 4: have to, you know, get the word out. And as

792
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 4: we opened with, just kind of get people thinking about

793
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:36,799
Speaker 4: this topic. And I do just want to interject for

794
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 4: just a second and say it is a sad topic.

795
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 3: It is a sad book, but.

796
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:43,319
Speaker 4: There are these moments of hope. There is at the

797
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:46,359
Speaker 4: end a Stepan was describing the ceremony. We describe other

798
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:50,920
Speaker 4: ceremonies around other subpopulations of the unclaimed. There is we

799
00:43:51,040 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 4: think a bit of a roadmap for thinking about repairing

800
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 4: some aspects of the social fabric. So so building off

801
00:43:58,080 --> 00:44:01,360
Speaker 4: that kind of thinking about what we can do, I

802
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:04,360
Speaker 4: would love my next project to have been to be

803
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:07,120
Speaker 4: something that would be maybe a little bit more lighthearted.

804
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:08,440
Speaker 3: But alas.

805
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:12,440
Speaker 4: What comes out of this this story for me that

806
00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:17,359
Speaker 4: still remains unanswered is understanding why so many families are

807
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 4: becoming estranged. I yeah, I just I didn't expect to

808
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 4: be studying family estrangement when I started studying unclaimed bodies,

809
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 4: and so that's that's where my my next research project

810
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:30,720
Speaker 4: will be going.

811
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:34,240
Speaker 2: That's that's awesome because I think it's really important because

812
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 2: I do see an increase of that, and it it's

813
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 2: it's everything, you know, especially when you are dealing with

814
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,320
Speaker 2: the very end of life, to see what happened. That's

815
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:48,560
Speaker 2: that's what it's about. And it's just it's really I

816
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:51,239
Speaker 2: think it's really awesome that you're doing that. And how

817
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:54,399
Speaker 2: about you, Stefan. You this is your second book about

818
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:56,239
Speaker 2: dead bodies. Now I'm starting to think you want to

819
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 2: come over to our side and do this for a living.

820
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: I think I'm already at your side because I'm teaching

821
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 1: a class of dead dying and the afterlife. To you, say,

822
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:11,319
Speaker 1: undergraduate students, students, Yes, but I think you know this.

823
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:15,399
Speaker 1: You cannot do research on a topic like this and

824
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 1: not take stock of your own life.

825
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 5: You know this is this is the kind of it's

826
00:45:19,200 --> 00:45:20,239
Speaker 5: kind of a wake up call.

827
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:22,959
Speaker 1: I mean, you you study these people who get more

828
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:27,000
Speaker 1: and more socially isolated. They're gathering stuff and then when

829
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:31,360
Speaker 1: they die just gets liquidated. It's you know, it's a

830
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: call to what really matters in your own life. And

831
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 1: I think, as just speaking for myself, it's sort of

832
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 1: like a moment of taking stock and the side, Okay,

833
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 1: I'm here in life, I probably have X amount of

834
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:46,440
Speaker 1: time left. What am I going to do with this?

835
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 1: This it's it's a very it's in this sense, it's

836
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:53,200
Speaker 1: it's it's a conversation starter for how do we want

837
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:56,399
Speaker 1: to be as a community, as a society, how much

838
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:58,120
Speaker 1: do we want to invest in social relationships?

839
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 5: But it's also like an individual make up caller, where

840
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 5: do we want to go? Where do I want to

841
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:07,040
Speaker 5: go next? And what do I want to complish? Where

842
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 5: do you want to make my mark?

843
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 1: It's you cannot just live with the illusion of immortality.

844
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:15,279
Speaker 1: When you see this book, you can and I mean

845
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 1: nobody grows up thinking when I die.

846
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:20,560
Speaker 5: I want to go unclicked.

847
00:46:20,719 --> 00:46:23,720
Speaker 1: I want nobody to care that I died. No, something

848
00:46:23,760 --> 00:46:26,560
Speaker 1: happens in life that you get to a point where

849
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 1: you m alone, abundant a debt, and what can we

850
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 1: do in our lives to avoid that. I think that's

851
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:40,919
Speaker 1: that's one of these questions that this book pulls out.

852
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was I was actually thinking that too, Like,

853
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:47,920
Speaker 2: is it how to make you kind of a better person,

854
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 2: like how to not end up unclaimed when you when

855
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 2: you read all these stories, I'm sure there's some overlapping

856
00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:59,319
Speaker 2: common factors that happen in each of the stories that

857
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:02,359
Speaker 2: a lot of people might relate to that they could

858
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:04,279
Speaker 2: see their kind of going down that road with their

859
00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:07,919
Speaker 2: family or something, and maybe can repair it before it's

860
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 2: too late. Thanks so much for being here today, guys,

861
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:14,359
Speaker 2: it's awesome, And everybody, I want everybody to go get

862
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 2: your book today. It's on sale. Where could they get it? Everywhere?

863
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 2: Amazon or just everywhere?

864
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:25,280
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, all right, the preferred retail?

865
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 2: Okay, awesome, all right, Well, thanks so much. It was

866
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 2: a great conversation.

867
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:31,600
Speaker 1: Thanks, thank you, you pleasure.

868
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Mother Knows Death. As a reminder,

869
00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 2: my training is as a pathologists assistant. I have a

870
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:48,120
Speaker 2: master's level education and specialize in anatomy and pathology education.

871
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 2: I am not a doctor and I have not diagnosed

872
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:55,120
Speaker 2: or treated anyone dead or alive without the assistance of

873
00:47:55,160 --> 00:48:00,400
Speaker 2: a licensed medical doctor. This show, my website, and social

874
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:03,920
Speaker 2: media accounts are designed to educate and inform people based

875
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:07,879
Speaker 2: on my experience working in pathology, so they can make

876
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:12,760
Speaker 2: healthier decisions regarding their life and well being. Always remember

877
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:15,920
Speaker 2: that science is changing every day, and the opinions expressed

878
00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 2: in this episode are based on my knowledge of those

879
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Speaker 2: subjects at the time of publication. If you are having

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Speaker 2: a medical problem, have a medical question, or having a

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Speaker 2: medical emergency, please contact your physician or visit an urgent

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Speaker 2: care center, emergency room, or hospital. Please rate, review, and

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Speaker 2: subscribe to Mother Knows Death on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or

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Speaker 2: anywhere you get podcasts. Thanks