Iraq veterans, now home, continue serving the dead

He mowed his yard, refilled his prescriptions and mopped his living room floor. Then the elderly man went into his bedroom in this placid Alabama town, sat on his bed and fired a bullet into his head.

It fell to Benjamin Lichtenwalner, an expert in the aftermath of violent death, to erase all signs of suicide. Blood and tissue stained the floor, walls, ceiling and curtains. A round from a .44 Smith & Wesson had left a perfect hole in a ceiling fan blade.

Lichtenwalner was part of the first Marine mortuary unit ever sent into combat. He handled the corpses of hundreds of war victims in Iraq -- Marines, insurgent fighters, civilians. Now he’s co-owner of Biotrauma, a small Georgia company that cleans up death scenes.

He still looks and acts like a Marine, with his high-and-tight haircut and attention to detail. His military duties instilled in him an abiding respect for the dead, and for those they leave behind.

When he arrived in Opelika, Lichtenwalner found the dead man’s stepson standing inside the brick home, staring at the bedroom doorway.

“I can’t go in there,” he told Lichtenwalner.

“We’re here to clean up so you don’t have to,” Lichtenwalner assured him.

For the next seven hours, Lichtenwalner and two employees sweated inside protective suits as they scrubbed the little bedroom. They cut up the mattress, ripped up the carpet, tore out the curtains, removed the ceiling fan and sawed up a section of floorboards. Blood had soaked through the box spring and onto the floor. Lichtenwalner wasn’t surprised. “Even a blood spot the size of a quarter will be the size of a pineapple underneath,” he said.

In the end, the room was spotless.

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Unique skill set

Lichtenwalner, 27, and Ryan Sawyer, 24, a former Marine from the same unit, started Biotrauma in 2006. They decided their mortuary training could be put to good use in the United States, where roughly 32,000 suicides and 18,000 homicides a year leave traumatized survivors.

“We realized we had the skills to help people in these tragic situations,” Lichtenwalner said. “We decided to try to do some good beyond being just a janitorial service -- get the job done, but be compassionate and sensitive too.”

Lichtenwalner said he volunteered to serve in Iraq with the mortuary unit because he wanted to prove himself in stressful and challenging situations. As a young sergeant who sometimes dealt with several war victims a day -- as well as distraught friends of the dead -- he learned to confront gore and grief head-on.

“The Marines were our brothers, and they relied on us,” Lichtenwalner said. “The people we deal with now are good people too, and it feels good to help them when they need it most.”

The work is emotionally draining. Some new employees at Biotrauma quit before completing the five cleanup jobs required to pass probation, Lichtenwalner said.

A few hours before the job in Opelika, Biotrauma had been called to a small home in rural Bynum, Ala., where a woman had committed suicide with a medication overdose. Her corpse was not discovered for 10 days.

The woman’s son-in-law greeted Lichtenwalner outside the kitchen door. “You never forget that smell,” the man told Lichtenwalner, his hand cupped over his nose and mouth.

The woman’s cat had been trapped inside the whole time, leaving messes that Lichtenwalner promised to clean at no charge.

The son-in-law wiped his eyes. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me to have y’all in here to handle this, with everything else I got going on,” he said.

For the next three hours, Lichtenwalner and two technicians methodically worked their way through the cramped bedroom. They removed the bedding and mattress. They covered the stains with black plastic so neighbors would not see them as the items were hauled to a trailer outside. Contaminated items are turned over to a private, EPA-approved contractor for incineration.

The crew sprayed the room with a hospital-grade disinfectant, plugged in an “ozone generator” -- a device designed to eliminate odors -- and misted the house with a commercial-grade air freshener.

Lichtenwalner made a point of not looking at the family photos. “I just don’t want to form any sort of attachment to the deceased,” he said. “It makes it easier to get in and get the job done.”

The woman’s son-in-law had told them a crucifix necklace was missing. The Biotrauma crew never found it, but they did discover a trove of handwritten notebooks, which Lichtenwalner gave to the man.

Cleaning up after a loved one’s death is perhaps the last thing grieving families want to think about. In most cases, Lichtenwalner said, his service does not cost them anything. He bills insurance companies, which subtract homeowner policy deductibles from Biotrauma’s payments.

“After what [the families] have been through,” he said, “the last thing I want to do is hit them with a bill.”

A typical cleanup costs $3,000 to $4,000 and takes three to five hours. More than half of Lichtenwalner’s jobs involve suicides, and the rest homicides or decomposing corpses.

When each job is finished, Lichtenwalner sends the family a copy of “Chicken Soup for the Grieving Soul” and a certificate saying the scene was professionally cleaned in case the family wants to rent or sell the house.

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Emotional work

Lichtenwalner seems to find solace in small gestures. Once, he said, he bought a new Christmas tree for a family whose original one was splattered by blood. He has combed through attics and crawl spaces to make sure they were not contaminated.

It’s odd, he admitted, but he has “a passion” for a profession others find repulsive. But some of the worst jobs -- such as a recent gunshot suicide in an infant’s bedroom -- take a psychological toll.

“It gets to me sometimes,” he said, “so I go home and empty every trash bag in the house.”

The only thing he encounters that he finds truly objectionable? Maggots.

In Opelika, Lichtenwalner was still at it at 3 a.m., scrubbing with gloved hands during a final inspection, his face inches from the walls. Finally, in true Marine Corps tradition, he began filling out a detailed after-action report to be mailed to the family and the insurance company.

Lichtenwalner and his workers -- Austin Lawless, 21, and Allen Williamson, 28 -- were exhausted. Their clothes were soaked with perspiration. Their eyes were bloodshot from focusing on minute specks under harsh work lights.

But Lichtenwalner thought he had not done enough. It seemed to him that the dead man’s stepson was paralyzed by grief, and he was powerless to help.

“We’re not in the counseling business,” Lichtenwalner said, “but I wish we had a way to just sit down longer with people like that and talk to them and somehow make things better.”

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david.zucchino@latimes.com