When Someone Dies "Destitute and Forsaken" in New York City

From The Lonely Death of George Bell, The New York Times (October 17, 2015)

When someone dies destitute and forsaken, and one of various free burial organizations does not learn of the case, the body ends up joining others in communal oblivion at the potter’s field on Hart Island in the Bronx, the graveyard of last resort.

If there are funds, the public administrator honors the wishes of the will or of relatives. When no one speaks for the deceased, the office is partial to two fairly dismal, cut-rate cemeteries in New Jersey. It prefers the total expense to come in under $5,000, not always easy in a city where funeral and burial costs can be multiples of that.

...

City law specifies that bodies be buried, cremated or sent from the city within four days of discovery, unless an exemption is granted. The medical examiner can release even an unverified body for burial. Absent a corpse’s being confirmed, however, the policy of the medical examiner is not to allow cremation. What if there has been a mistake? You can’t un-cremate someone.

So days scrolled past. Other corpses streamed through the morgue, pausing on their way to the grave, while the body presumed to be George Bell entered its second month of chilled residence. Then its third.

Tanya Marsh