In around 50,000 people that die in New York each year, a good majority is mourned, celebrated and missed by family and friends. Their passing is often replete with rites and memorabilia. When a death is especially tragic or moving, the bereaved may even be joined by the whole city. A much smaller percentage tends to remain as statistics. They are unwitnessed and forgotten. In certain cases, their remains may be unclaimed or undiscovered. What happens to those who die these lonely deaths in New York?
A man presumed to be 72-year old George Bell Junior is one such statistic. His body was found crumpled upon his living room carpet in his apartment on 79th Street in Jackson Heights. A neighbour called 911 for help on July 12, 2014 because of a strong, unpleasant odour that had been emanating from George's apartment. No one had seen George since six days earlier. The corpse that the police found was decomposed and unrecognisable, obviously dead for quite some time.
Following his discovery, the officers from 115th Precinct notified the medical examiner's office to verify any evidence of foul play and to assist in locating next of kin to the deceased for identification.
A paramedic from the Fire Department formally pronounced George Bell dead. The body was then transported in a remains pouch and deposited into one of the refrigerators at the Queens Hospital Centre's morgue. Around 90 percent of bodies at city morgues are easily identified by relatives or friends and are released for burial within a few days. When this does not happen, fingerprints or dental and medical records, at times even DNA, serve the purpose of identification. For George, no such record seem to have existed.
With no luck on finding medical records, the medical examiner filed an unverified death certificate for George on July 28 with the cause of death as hypertensive and arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease based on the position in which the body was found, age, the size and statistical likelihood.
George's body was released to Simonson Funeral Home in the care of owner John Sommese. George's coffin was covered with an American flag, to honour George's years in the Army Reserves, before it was transported for cremation to the U.S. Columbarium at the Fresh Pond Crematory, Middle Village. George's shoe box-shaped urn, labeled "George M. Bell Jr. 1942-2014", was deposited into the columbarium's storage.
Kinship investigator Elizabeth Rooney, from the office of the public administrator's counsel, had been tasked by law to trace all eligible kin who can claim George's estate. Such ones found must be notified and even allowed to contest any will.
Some of the things observed in the last years of George's life was that he was suffering a lot of pain in his old age and seemed to merely be waiting to die. Although he still had a few people with whom he remained friends in these years not a one could tell why he died alone and without anyone knowing.
