Wake County to store bodies awaiting autopsy in refrigerated shipping containers

Wake County is planning to use refrigerated shipping containers to store the bodies of people who need to be autopsied.

It comes after county leaders say the state broke off a long-running agreement to store those bodies, citing capacity concerns.

Wake County’s proposed budget allocates $2.4 million to run two cooled shipping containers with the capacity to hold up to 100 bodies.

State law requires counties in North Carolina to store the bodies of their residents that need an autopsy.

County leaders told WRAL News that for at least 25 years, they had an informal deal with the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the OCME would store Wake County’s bodies awaiting autopsy at its Raleigh office.

But county leaders said they were told last year to find another place to store these bodies – and they understood why.

"Over time, the population has increased," Wake County deputy emergency manager Joshua Creighton said. "Even today, this past year Wake County is still growing by 57 people a day."

The deputy emergency manager said Wake County has seen a 7% increase in deaths year over year.

With opioid overdose deaths also tripling since 2020, the county’s seeing significantly more bodies that need to be autopsied.

The answer: the shipping containers, which will come online in July.

"Especially since COVID emerged, a lot of jurisdictions across the country had to put systems like this in place," Creighton said. "And we just copied what some of those jurisdictions had in place and followed our COVID plan for mass casualty."

The county’s proposed budget for FY2024 sets aside $2.4 million to run the containers, which are expected to last five years – until a potential permanent facility can be found.

"We don’t have any specifics on what the permanent solution is," Creighton said. "We’re going to do a study here in the fall that looks at the permanent solution and what is best for Wake County."

WRAL News reached out to the OCME for a response to the dissolution of the deal with Wake County, and to ask if the office is providing the county with any resources.

"The medical examiner system across all of NC has seen a dramatic increase in caseload over the last several years," a spokesperson told WRAL News. "OCME has been working for more than a year with Wake County to support their need to develop Wake County decedent storage as established by statute."