Teens going through the coroner's visitation program view photographs of young people who have died. The program uses local case studies to make an impression on teens who face charges in the court system. Photos by John Locher.
Handcuffed and shackled, juvenile offenders who have been arrested in connection with violent acts walk past bodies at the Clark County coroner's office. The program is meant to deter the youths from a life of violent behavior.
"That's what amazes me about you guys. You guys will go into houses, you'll go into places where people want to kill you, but you're scared to go in there, where there's no chance of one of them getting up and killing you." ROY CHANDLER A coordinator and founder of the Clark County Coroner's Visitation Program
As they stand among the deteriorating human corpses, bones and skulls, the 10 boys are in handcuffs and shackles, draped from head to toe in light blue protective covering.
Only their eyes are visible. But their eyes say it all.
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A few are wide in disbelief. Some are squinting from the choking stench of the dead. But most of them -- being the eyes of 15- to 17-year-old boys -- are captivated, intent on taking it all in.
"You need to understand that this could be you," warns Ron Moracco, one of the coordinators of the Clark County coroner's visitation program, as he points to the bodies around him. "Next time you do something stupid, think of this place."
Moracco, a driver's education teacher with the Clark County School District, is one of two coordinators of the program, now in its fourth year of taking young people through the back doors of the coroner's office.
Juvenile detainees, troubled school district students and reckless adult drivers all have been recommended or required to go through the program, designed to deter people from a life of reckless or violent behavior.
The program has been deemed a success by its creators. Roy Chandler, the other coordinator and founder of the program, cites a rate of 12.6 percent of young people being arrested again after going through it, compared with 46 percent for other deterrent programs in the county.
"That's unheard of in corrections," said Jerry Simon, a gang specialist with the Clark County Department of Juvenile Justice Services. The 10 boys going through the program on this day are under Simon's supervision, and they all have been arrested for violent acts.
Officials characterize their crimes as "bad decisions." They aren't career criminals, at least not yet.
Armed robbery, home invasion, possession of a firearm. One is in for involuntary manslaughter. A few are in gangs.
They've been fortunate that a judge hasn't adjudicated them as adults for their crimes -- it's the difference between juvenile detention and time in prison.
The coroner's office saw more than 10,000 bodies pass through its doors last year. Of those, 247 were juveniles, or one dead youngster every day and a half.
Simon said he's seen a dramatic increase in the number of young people arrested for violent crimes. Last year the number of such youths going through the coroner's program was about one in 10. This year about half of the people going through the program have been arrested for violent crimes.
"This is going to be one of the worst summers here because we know more juveniles have guns than ever before," Simon said.
Last year's figure of 247 dead youths is up almost 50 percent since 2001, when 167 people 17 years old and younger were examined by the coroner's office. The rate of increase is almost twice as high as that of all bodies examined by the coroner's office.
Chandler and Moracco use local case studies to relate to the juveniles. Before a group arrives, they know what the teens are charged with and can tailor the program to speak to a particular youth's personal experience.
One 15-year-old boy in the class was charged with involuntary manslaughter after a car he was driving illegally was T-boned by another vehicle. The 16-year-old girl in the passenger seat died.
Moracco shows the group a slide show of a girl who died in the passenger seat of her boyfriend's sport utility vehicle.
The girl's boyfriend had been doing "doughnuts" in the desert when he hit a pothole and flipped. The girl wasn't wearing a seat belt, and her head was crushed between the frame of the vehicle and the ground.
The boys are shown a picture of half the girl's brain, which was found near the SUV, lying in the desert. They grimace and look away.
"I'm afraid you're going to see the path your friend went through tonight," Moracco tells the teen charged with manslaughter. The boy starts crying.
Chandler and Moracco try to emphasize the impact that these teenagers' actions have on their families, a recurring theme throughout their visit.
Before they're wrapped up in plastic gowns, face masks and head coverings, Chandler notices that the boys are fidgety and nervous.
"That's what amazes me about you guys," Chandler says. "You guys will go into houses, you'll go into places where people want to kill you, but you're scared to go in there, where there's no chance of one of them getting up and killing you."
The coroner's office examines homicide victims, suspicious deaths or cases in which another person is likely to be prosecuted. The office sees almost every person who dies in Southern Nevada, with the exception of those who die in a hospice or whose cause of death already is known.
The Clark County School District has been using the program in one form or another for about two years, Chandler says.
Chandler hosted a group of psychologists with the district's northwest region in March. They, too, went into the cold back room where the bodies are stored.
"This is a godsend, it truly is," psychologist Adah Kennen said.
"Anything that gets their attention is a good thing these days," psychologist Gene Bowen added.
To combat the increase in violent youths, which has been going up almost every year, Chandler and former Clark County Coroner Ron Flud helped develop the program, which was signed into law in 2001 and saw its first class in 2002.
The program has been expanded under the current coroner, Michael Murphy, to include in-custody juveniles. Municipal and justice courts also refer reckless drivers to the program.
The program also is available to members of the public for a $45 fee.
And there also is talk of extending it to juvenile and adult DUI offenders, Chandler said, with the first offenders possibly going through the program as soon as the fall.
For those who haven't been through the coroner's office, it's a cold, silent, sterile atmosphere. The walls are devoid of compassion or scorn. This is a place that deals with a simple fact: People die, and then they come here.
But for the teens, the walk-through is more educational than terrifying.
Before they go into the cold room where dozens of bodies are held, they learn how the office processes the thousands of people who come through their doors and how the coroners perform their jobs.
Autopsies rarely take more than a couple of hours, but small children and those involved in a particularly violent death can require a far longer amount of time.
"Accident victims are some of the worst," Moracco says during the program. "It seems like their body just explodes."
As the teens make their way through the cold room, their demeanor changes from horror to curiosity.
The bodies are covered with body bags out of respect for the dead, Moracco says, and it's for the same reason that the teens aren't allowed to witness autopsies.
But the hands, arms and feet of the deceased are visible. The extensions look rubbery and fake, and some of them are marked with specks of blood.
Of the many sensations the boys experience while in the coroner's office, the smell will be one of the most memorable.
"It's the smell of death," Chandler tells them. "It's difficult to explain, but you'll remember it forever."
"It smells like a fish market I used to work at," one of the teens says.
After the visit, Simon takes the boys back to the juvenile detention center, where they're debriefed.
"You know when you're about to do something wrong," juvenile probation officer Thomas Gallia tells them. "Think about your grandmother looking down on you on that table."
Simon tries to draw out the raw, childlike emotions from the teens. He explains that if one of them dies, he's going to know.
"We will come and look at you," Simon says. "We're going to pull that sheet back and say, 'What could we have done more?' And we're going to cry. We're grown men, and we're going to cry."
Several of the teens have tears streaming down their faces.
Most of them eventually will go back home. When they do, they'll be facing the same situations they left, he said, with little parental support and living in gang-infested neighborhoods.
