Coroner’s Web site helps ID bodies

Jen Lawson

Monday, Sept. 13, 2004 | 8:17 a.m.

Inspired by the positive response that came after pictures of unidentified dead people were posted on the Clark County coroner's office Web site, officials now plan to expand the site by trying to track down their families.

"Money is tight and everyone is looking for a better way to do things," Coroner Mike Murphy said. Searching for next of kin via the site is "the next logical step."

The coroner's office has four statutory responsibilities: To determine cause and manner of death, identify the dead and notify next-of-kin.

Sometimes coroner's officials have identified a person, but cannot locate any relatives. Murphy hopes the new addition to the Web site will solve that.

Logistics, such as what information to put on the Web site about family members, are still being hammered out, but Murphy said he expects to have this feature added to the site by the end of the year.

A link to the coroner's site can be found at www.accessclarkcounty.com.

The coroner's Web site went online last November. It gives descriptions of 180 bodies and locations where they were found dating back to 1969. Thirty-three also include photos of the corpses' faces or artists' sketches of what the person might have looked like.

Eighteen bodies have been identified through the Web site. Murphy said he is elated.

"We thought we would get one or two a year, maybe," he said.

The most recent person to be identified is a girl known until last month as Jane "Liteweight" Doe. She was found buried in a hole and encased in concrete in February near Jean by a man walking a dog.

Two e-mail tips came in as a result of the Web site, Murphy said. She was identified as Jamie Sheldon, coroner's officials said, who was 17 when she was reported missing in 2002.