Death takes no holiday at coroner’s office

Felicia Borla begins her Christmas morning by donning plastic gloves and examining the charred remains of a young woman on a table.

It's about 9 a.m., the time many families are opening gifts near the warm glow of a Christmas tree.

Borla, 33, a coroner's investigator, crouches beneath cold fluorescent lights and looks for tattoos, scars or other identifying marks on the burnt corpse, found Thursday in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

The Clark County coroner's office determined it wasn't the body of missing burlesque dancer Deborah Flores-Narvaez. The next step is to identify who the slain woman is.

Borla could find no distinguishing marks. She shakes her head in disappointment, knowing that makes the mystery harder to solve.

Down the hallway in the coroner's office on Pinto Lane near Valley Hospital Medical Center, several forensic technicians, most of them women, are dressed in plastic gowns and goggles as they perform autopsies on two bodies.

For coroner's crews, death takes no holiday.

"This is one of the things that you can't close up shop for the day," says Jim Bichsel, senior forensic technician.

Working with the dead

Most of these staffers are working Christmas because they lack seniority or they have no young kids and want to allow their colleagues with small children to be with their families.

Bichsel, though, says he has a 5-year-old son. His wife, an emergency dispatcher, also had to work on Christmas Day.

The family celebrated on Christmas Eve. Bichsel and his wife told their son that Santa agreed to come early to accommodate their schedules.

A co-worker interrupts Bichsel.

"Do you want that finger?" the worker asks.

Apparently, a John Doe's hands were too mummified to get a clear reading of the fingerprints. The technician sliced off a fingertip so Bichsel could sprinkle fluorescent powder on it and visually enhance the microscopic grooves.

Bichsel steps away to handle this forensic task.

Inside the autopsy room, the team has the skin peeled back from the neck and chest of a rotund corpse, while a technician revs a whirring electric saw.

Their work is almost done. It's shaping up to be a slow day.

Then word comes of an infant death. It's the kind of case that the coroner's staff dreads most, especially on Christmas.

In the midst of loss

Investigators who have the unenviable job of notifying people that a loved one died, say this task is always unpleasant. But they agree that imparting such horrendous news on Christmas intensifies the emotional trauma because it's supposed to be a joyful day.

"The whole world stops for Christmas," Borla says .

All the hoopla -- the holiday shopping deals, the movies, the TV specials, the decorations -- becomes a lifelong reminder of a person's loss, Borla said.

Being an investigator requires sensitivity and a thick hide, said Borla, who has done the work for 10 years. Bereaved people often will turn their grief and anger against the messenger, but you can't take it personally, she said.

The investigator must try to console people, and not just dump the tragic news on them and leave, Borla said.

On Christmas Eve, she spent two hours with a grief-stricken woman who lost her husband and who now must raise a baby by herself.

Suicide hadn't been ruled out, prompting the woman, a Catholic, to ask whether her husband would go to heaven, said Borla, who was raised Catholic.

Borla offered no definitive answers. She just comforted the woman until family members arrived.

Borla credits her Catholic background with drawing her into a job centered around death.

She approaches her work with the belief that death is not the end, and that in the midst of loss, people can find the strength to move on with life.

Still, her cubicle reflects a different side of her. Like some co-workers, she has macabre touches of humor that remind visitors they're in the coroner's office.

In Borla's case, it's a small, black Christmas tree adorned with a skull wearing a Santa's beard.

All that is low-key compared with Dr. Gary Telgenhoff, aka "Skinner Rat," who gained notoriety with his edgy heavy metal persona and consulting work for the television drama "CSI."

Near Telgenhoff's desk is an anatomically correct marshmallow heart.

The dark humor provides a brief respite from the grim business at hand, Borla said.

At about 10:30 a.m., she's assigned to officially confirm a death of a man at a local hospice. A homeless man had beaten him severely on Thanksgiving Day and he died on Christmas Day, she said.

An infant death

Rick Jones, an investigator for 13 years, says most people would view his job as unbearably depressing. He sees himself as helping families through the worst day of their lives.

"It's a good feeling, trying to help people -- not succeeding -- but trying," he says.

Jones then is told that the newborn who died that morning had no history of medical problems. That means more investigation will be required.

"Oh," Jones groans.

Investigator Jennifer Demers, 34, is assigned. She must meet the parents and police at the hospital and look into whether the 5-day-old infant was abused .

Demers spends two hours at the hospital before meeting the parents at their apartment where paramedics tried to save the baby.

She takes a kit that includes a baby doll, so the parents can show all the actions leading up to the infant's death.

Afterward, Demers says she saw a Christmas tree with unopened presents underneath. Some of the gifts probably were for the baby.

"That mom is always going to remember Christmas as an unhappy time, rather than a fun holiday," Demers says . "That's going to memorialize this loved one's death."

Demers says she is grateful to have colleagues who give her emotional support as she deals with such a sad case. They're like a second family, she says.

"They know what you're going through more than your regular family."

Contact reporter Scott Wyland at swyland@reviewjournal.com or 702-455-4519.