You know, we passed on this Earth,
family, and friends traditionally
come together to remember,
maybe share some memories,
some stories, thoughts,
you know things of that nature.
Other species may mourn,
but it's uniquely human to
come together for a funeral.
What happens, though,
if there's nobody there to do that?
It's a somber thought to pass away from
this earth and nobody there to remember us.
Ada County Coroner Donnie
Owens took that to heart.
She decided to do something for
those who pass in our community
that have nobody around.
Joe Perez takes us to Cloverdale funeral,
where Funeral Home.
That is.
Where today,
the forgotten are remembered again.
A crowd sits at Terrace Lawn
Memorial Gardens to celebrate the
lives of those who've passed the
dynamic here, though, is unique.
Those in attendance at this
memorial never really knew
the people being celebrated.
Everyone is important, and each
of us leaves something behind
when we depart from this life.
It's that notion that inspired
Ada County Coroner Dottie Owens
to do something for those who
seem to have been forgotten.
Owen says every year there is a
list of people who come through her
office that have no next of kin
or investigators aren't able to.
Find those people.
There are also cases when a
person is abandoned by family
for one reason or another,
so I'm pretty passionate about the
memorial that we do every year.
I am when I first took office
almost eight years ago,
we discovered that we had
closets full of these cremains
storing. Unclaimed remains is a
practicality of the coroner profession,
but Owens believed that those remains
belonged in a more respectable environment.
I had some cremains in our
office from 1996 forward so.
Any time a a county and indigent what
we call an indigent case is cremated.
Those cremains come back to the office
and then we would retain custody,
and they were literally
storing them everywhere.
We could just find empty space and drawers
so the 80 county Coroner's office partnered
with Cloverdale Funeral Home to create
a memorial and event to pay tribute.
Cloverdale donated a crypt to store
unclaimed remains in a dignified manner.
It's very beautiful.
Cloverdale actually designed it,
and we were so grateful that they did that.
They did that at no cost.
County it was all donated and so we,
that's why we continue to do this.
We would not be able to do this.
Head Cloverdale done this for us.
Mark Allen Williams Justin D Davis,
Sharon Harris.
We speak the names of those
who are no longer with us.
Names of people we knew.
Names of strangers.
Names of relatives, names of
ones whose names are not known.
We carry their names.
Members of the public and county staffers
joined in on the Special Memorial Service.
But this does not mark the end of
the road for unclaimed remains.
The effort to connect with families
continues for Owens and her staff.
With these cases, there's a lot
of heart and soul that goes into
finding these individuals families.
I am once we get through the cremation
process, we just don't stop looking.
We, you know, we've got investigators.
If they've got down time.
If I've got down time,
my chief will pull out a case and start
going through it and looking for you know,
did we miss something?
Is there some kind of relation somewhere
that we just haven't identified?
State statue on how long they
need to maintain remains,
but they do have their own policy.
Always keep looking.
We do that for families because we
are with technology and every case
is entered into Namus so that anyone
that seeking for a family member can
see that we have had that as a case
and that we would have those cremains.
Even though we are just one among
hundreds of billions of people who
have or still live on this earth,
we are all unique. We are all known
and loved by someone. We all matter.
It's wonderful to know that community and
our staff and Cloverdale and everyone
that's been involved in this. Just there's.
There's still that need to find placement.
Alright Joe, she talked about the
names you heard, the names being
read during the ceremony today,
but are they like carved in stone?
Those names those people are they?
They're kind of commemorated forever,
so the hope is that they don't
have to be commemorated forever
and that a family member or next
of kin will come forward and say,
I recognize that you have this name
on your website. I'm next to kin.
I'd like to collect these remains and
go bury this person the way I'd like to.
So all of the names that are unclaimed
remains in Ada County from over the years.
By the way, this dates back to
the 90s as coroner.
One just said they're right on
the ADA County Coroner's website,
and there's a running list,
and there's actually it's a pretty
long list from over the years,
and if for some reason you lost a loved one,
or for some reason you're looking for a name,
it's available right now at the ADA
County Coroners website and we're gonna
put a link in this story at ktvb.com.
But Brian,
the hope is that these unclaimed remains
that one day they are reunited with family,
and for whatever reason sometimes it's
impossible to find that family or families.
Not interested,
but corner Owens tells me that she finds
that throughout the years at some point.
If someone recognizes a family name,
they make it happen to get in contact
with the corner and make sure that those
remains are reunited with the family.
Yeah, they do their investigation,
but there are loophole or some
holes somewhere probably and you
never know with blended families
these days, anything's possible.
Somebody's connected somewhere,
and it has to be next.
If kin under state statute,
so they can't just start handing
out remains the truth that,
say of their friends, so there is
some technicalities to get through,
but they really just want to get these
remains buried with their family.
All right, thank you very much, Joe.