Eunice Will Be Site of New St. Landry Parish Coroner’s Facility and Morgue

Eunice, LA (KPEL News) - St. Landry Parish Government has been awarded a grant to build a morgue. They plan to build the facility in Eunice, Louisiana.

Officials announced Monday that the grant for $201,431 will allow them to create a Coroner's Examination Room and Morgue. The addition will allow them to upgrade coroner services in the parish.

The reasons why an autopsy is performed go beyond identifying how someone was killed. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine lists circumstances that warrant an autopsy:

• When a suspicious or unexpected death occurs
• When there's a public health concern, such as an outbreak with an undetermined cause
• When no doctor knows the deceased well enough to state a cause of death and to sign the death certificate
• When the doctor, the family or legally responsible designee of the deceased person requests an autopsy

Zeb Stearns is the coroner in St. Landry Parish, and he says,

This is a first for St. Landry Parish. We have never had a morgue facility before, and until now, deceased individuals have been stored at various funeral homes across the parish.

The grant from the Department of Justice will cover the construction of a dedicated facility. The majority of the more than $200,000 allocation will fund building a new morgue which St. Landry Parish Government says "will improve the storage and preservation of deceased individuals." By having a dedicated space for the coroner, the parish hopes to maintain the integrity of evidence and speed up the autopsy process.

The more quickly an autopsy can be completed aids in a speedier determination of the cause and manner of death.