Riverside Morgue Will Be Relocated

Awful and unmistakable, it was the smell of death.

Not just the smell of morgues, the tang of formaldehyde and chemical cleaners. This was the stench of decomposing flesh. Of corpses awaiting autopsies in a stuffy, overheated room.

The smell dominated the Riverside County coroner’s office for years.

It nauseated employees. It disgusted visitors. Then this summer, the air conditioning broke and the smell got even worse.

No longer able to mask the stink with scented candles or perfume spritzes, coroner’s employees petitioned county supervisors for relief. On Tuesday, the supervisors responded, ordering the coroner to come up with a relocation plan within two weeks--and pledging emergency funds to help out.

“We’re looking for a quick solution,” Supervisor Roy Wilson said. “We don’t want the public and we don’t want employees in there.”

Until they can find permanent headquarters, employees may lease space from local mortuaries. In the meantime, the public will be barred from entering the existing facility, a poorly ventilated downtown building that dates to 1925. With its stone arches and quaint tile roof, the morgue looks more like a country church than a medical facility. But step inside and there’s no mistaking its function.

“I’ve had people run out of here sick to their stomach,” said Chief Deputy Coroner Dan Cupido. “I go to business meetings and I know the smell of death is on me. I wonder what people think.”

The ventilation is so poor that Coroner Scotty Hill requires all his employees to get annual tuberculosis tests. And he urges everyone to step outside if they feel nauseated--never mind the lost work time.

“If the smell’s going through the building, who knows what else is,” he said.

Worried about the health risks--not to mention the emotional toll--Hill has been writing memos to the Board of Supervisors for years, pleading for funds to renovate the morgue or find a new facility. But it took a petition signed by all 17 employees last week to prompt action.

“We should have been dealing with this more aggressively the last couple of years,” Supervisor John Tavaglione acknowledged during Tuesday’s meeting. “We can no longer allow employees of the coroner’s office and families of lost loved ones to be subjected to these kinds of conditions.”

The smell intensifies every morning when deputy coroners wheel bodies out of refrigerated storage for autopsies. With the air conditioning on the fritz, the corpses decompose quickly. And without proper ventilation, the smell soon permeates the entire building.

Even passersby walking outside the morgue can sometimes smell it. And grieving families often can’t stand to stay inside long enough to collect their loved ones’ belongings.

“I go out to smoke and the receptionist, who doesn’t smoke, asks me to wave the cigarette smoke in because she’d rather smell that,” said Veronica Martinez, the coroner’s secretary. “It’s hard enough to deal with death. It takes a special person. But then to smell it. . . .”