Discuss Detroit » Archives - Beginning July 2006 » Body Collector in Detroit Answers When Death Calls « Previous Next »
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Lilpup
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Username: Lilpup

Post Number: 1337
Registered: 06-2004
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 12:42 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09 /18/us/18album.html

“White people kill themselves. Black people kill each other. Chinese people don’t die.”

(LOL, but I think the guy's underpaid)
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Jimaz
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Username: Jimaz

Post Number: 638
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 12:52 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Well worth reading.
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Naturalsister
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Username: Naturalsister

Post Number: 816
Registered: 11-2004
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 1:34 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Yep, good read.

Another story from the big city.

Very interesting.

later - naturalsister
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Motorcitymayor2026
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Username: Motorcitymayor2026

Post Number: 1320
Registered: 10-2005
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 2:02 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

i suggest watching the viedo as well...interesting to say the least
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Fnemecek
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Username: Fnemecek

Post Number: 1965
Registered: 12-2004
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 10:33 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The ad for "Little Miss Sunshine" right before the video interview with Mr. Death makes the whole seem so surreal.
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Wmuchris
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Username: Wmuchris

Post Number: 430
Registered: 06-2005
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 10:41 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

No joke, I hung out with this guy at the Bar on Saturday night. He was a real character. I thought that he was full of it when he told me about his job. Funny how this thread popped up today.

Kind of reminded me of Flava Flave.
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Supersport
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Username: Supersport

Post Number: 10617
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 12:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I like how they included beer a few times.
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Gannon
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Username: Gannon

Post Number: 6801
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 1:09 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I did this with a friend of my mother's from high school for a very short while in eighth grade.

Somehow she thought it excellent experience for me for a first job.

It got old quick. Must've been the first job I ever quit.
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Scofield
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Username: Scofield

Post Number: 38
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 1:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

yeesh... ya think someone would give him a contract as a rapper. call him the grim reaper. :-)
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Frenchman_in_the_d
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Username: Frenchman_in_the_d

Post Number: 36
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 2:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

the article perfectly reflected the atmosphere in Detroit's hoods. Hows sad...

Now, a little clarification:
all he does is collect the bodies and take them to the morgue right? Would he be empoyed by the city? A hospital? DPD?
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Pffft
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Username: Pffft

Post Number: 1093
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 2:21 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Oh good grief. Charlie McDuff is a hack to trot out the tired old "dying Detroit" metaphor. We've been hearing that Detroit is dying since, what, the '67 riots? Making it the longest, most drawn out civic death ever.

The only thing worse than Charlie McDuff writing about Detroit is another Micheline Maynard chop job on the American auto industry.
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Lilpup
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Username: Lilpup

Post Number: 1339
Registered: 06-2004
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 2:26 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

my guess is probably employed by the County Coroner's Office or as an independent contractor
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Frenchman_in_the_d
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Username: Frenchman_in_the_d

Post Number: 37
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 2:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

just asking because of some worries. I wanted to know how the whole thing works... you know, in case someone tampers with a body before the autopsy...
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Gannon
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Username: Gannon

Post Number: 6803
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 2:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

what are you planning to do?
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Frenchman_in_the_d
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Username: Frenchman_in_the_d

Post Number: 39
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 2:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

well... I'm not trying to do anything. In fact, a friend of mine... LOL

No, I was actually worried that people like Mr. Thomas were too free walking around with bodies e.g. after gang shootings or random killings perpetrators buying the bodies from Mr. Thomas to hinder the investigations. Is he supervised during his work? Or is he pretty much free? Worried because the article states than more than 10.000 homicides have been unsolved since the 70's!!!

Of course, I'm not doubting about Mr. Thomas, but about the whole mechanism. It seems odd that one guy picks up the body and delivers it to the morgue... or maybe it IS that simple...
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Monahan568
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Username: Monahan568

Post Number: 146
Registered: 04-2004
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 2:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

“You see,” he begins, “80 percent of people die naked and 70 percent die in the toilet. That means most people die naked in the toilet."

um...thats disturbing....
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Gannon
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Username: Gannon

Post Number: 6806
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 3:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Just hold it, Monahan, and you'll live forever.

Odds are, that is.
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Supersport
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Username: Supersport

Post Number: 10619
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 3:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)


quote:

“I seen an old lady standing dead at her stove, her purse hanging on her elbow.




I guess the question remains, who finished cooking her husband his dinner?
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Bvos
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Username: Bvos

Post Number: 1999
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 10:44 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

bump
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Jimaz
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Username: Jimaz

Post Number: 644
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Monday, September 18, 2006 - 11:02 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I recently had a discussion with a fellow in Florida that does this. He agreed that "You have to perform the most undignified tasks in the most dignified way possible." when describing unfolding a body that died while hunched over watching TV. Creepy.
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Dougw
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Username: Dougw

Post Number: 1336
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - 1:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

An interesting and well-written article, but I agree with Pffft that all of the "Dying Detroit" comments were gratuitous and not really accurate. Detroit as a dying city may have been an interesting angle 20-40 years ago, but not so much now.
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Thnk2mch
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Username: Thnk2mch

Post Number: 374
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - 1:17 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Detroit body snatcher suspended

September 20, 2006

Detroit’s self-proclaimed bag man is on suspension for talking his mouth off.

In a New York Times article that ran on Sunday, Mike Thomas waxed about the rigors of his job as a body retrievalist in one of the most dangerous cities in America.

The interview, and accompanying video, might cost him his job.


http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs .dll/article?AID=/20060920/NEW S99/60920016
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Gannon
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Username: Gannon

Post Number: 6835
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - 1:33 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Let's boycott.

Everybody LIVE!
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Karl
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Username: Karl

Post Number: 4083
Registered: 09-2005
Posted on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - 2:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

To clarify: If someone has been under the care of a doctor and has been declared dead by the doctor, this guy can move him. If they've not been under a doctor's care, the coroner has been there and checked things out before he's allowed to move the body. This does NOT work the same as when you call to have a dead animal picked up - which he does also. Someone in an official capacity for Wayne County has been there to check for foul play, etc.

One wonders why the NYT's didn't bother to report on their own PU guys, who are probably unionized and making $70K/year? Why they run a story about a city hundreds of miles away, reporting in a rather dismal manner, instead of running the same story that is happening daily (and with much more regularity) right in NYC - as well as any city/county in the world.

I'm sure there are several dozen folks who've already had this article waved in their faces as someone shouts at them, "Now see how good you have it??" All at the expense of the COD. An unfortunate lesson on why entities like Wayne County shouldn't do things on the cheap.
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Mikem
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Username: Mikem

Post Number: 2880
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - 4:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)


quote:

Why they run a story about a city hundreds of miles away, reporting in a rather dismal manner, instead of running the same story that is happening daily (and with much more regularity) right in NYC - as well as any city/county in the world.



because it's part of...

"American Album"
A Series
By CHARLIE LeDUFF
In a feature appearing every other Monday, portraits of offbeat Americans by Charlie LeDuff, with videos on nytimes.com"

quote:

An unfortunate lesson on why entities like Wayne County shouldn't do things on the cheap.



So you believe outsourcing this work was a poor decision?
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Livernoisyard
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Username: Livernoisyard

Post Number: 1460
Registered: 10-2004
Posted on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - 4:19 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

This guy was suspended at least as far back as this morning. He worked for some contractor. Check with Beckmann at WJR, who has been on the air with his supervisor, telling him to keep him.
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Bvos
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Username: Bvos

Post Number: 2002
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - 9:58 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Doug & Pfft said that Dying Detroit is an overused and possibly inaccurate metaphor.

Well, virtually all numbers say that Detroit is still dying, yes even 50+ years after it started. Sorry to say it, but that's the truth. Sure there are some positive things happening around the city, but overall things have a long way to go before the majority of the city is on an upward trajectory.
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Kathleen
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Username: Kathleen

Post Number: 1586
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Thursday, September 21, 2006 - 7:05 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The News reports that Mr. Thomas has been suspended from his job for talking to the media about his job.

"A county corpse collector has been suspended after being interviewed about his oddly fascinating occupation in one of the world's most widely read newspapers.

Mike Thomas, 34, of Detroit, a body technician who transports corpses for the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office, was the focus of a lengthy piece that offered a glimpse inside an often sheltered business. It was published Monday in the New York Times; the story ran in The Detroit News' Metro section Wednesday. ..."

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pb cs.dll/article?AID=/20060921/M ETRO/609210410/1003
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Itsjeff
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Username: Itsjeff

Post Number: 6899
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Thursday, September 21, 2006 - 7:49 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

(presents a bunch of posies) I'd collect your body any ol' time, Miss Kathleen. (kicks the dirt)
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Amy_p
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Username: Amy_p

Post Number: 711
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Thursday, September 21, 2006 - 9:18 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Heard this morning that he's been fired. And that there's interest in him for two reality shows (though seems he'd need the job for that...).

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