As I worked other mass fatalities, I came to learn that each incident has its own unique problems of victim identification. In high-impact plane crashes, for instance, authorities have a reliable list of the presumed dead. Yes, you've got human tissues that are fragmented, commingled, and scattered, but at least you know who they're all supposed to belong to. When an office building collapses or goes up in flames, on the other hand, you're less certain of who might have been inside, but you can try to find people's identifying documents, such as driver's licenses, or hope that some of the victims were wearing jewelry or clothing that a spouse or parent will remember from that morning.
Here at Waco we had none of those clues. The list of the compound's residents was incomplete and in some cases had been intentionally obscured by the victims themselves, who included runaways, foreign nationals using false names, and U.S. citizens who had changed their names to conform to the sect's beliefs. And because they'd all been shut up together for days, no one on the outside had any idea of what they were wearing. Branch Davidians didn't carry wallets with IDs, nor did they indulge in materialistic practices like wearing jewelry (except a few pieces bearing the Star of David, which Koresh bestowed on some of his favorites). No one even knew exactly how many people had lived in the compound-but somehow the unique team of experts that had been assembled here would have to come up with a list of names.
That team-my team-had now made its way back to the morgue, and the previously quiet but smelly room seemed to be coming to life. I stood and watched from the sidelines as workers opened more doors into adjoining rooms. The door to the x-ray room featured the magenta trefoil-the international symbol for nuclear radiation-while a bright red light glowed above the door. “Do not enter when red light is on,” warned a large sign. Another room was set aside for the dental identification team and still another for the fingerprint specialists. At the moment, though, the whole team was milling around the cabinet near the entrance to the main suite, climbing into their protective gear.
No one had time to tell me what to do, so I kept an eye on the seasoned staff and imitated them, thrusting my arms into a heavy cotton surgical gown so that the dangling strips of cloth would tie in the back. Then I grabbed a yellow surgical mask that I also tied in back, pulling it tightly over my mouth and nose. It didn't shut out the smell, but it did reassure me that I wouldn't be inhaling any stray spatters of blood. Next, I reached into a box and pulled out a one-size-fits-all pair of paper booties, which I slipped over my sneakers like a pair of galoshes. Another box held thin paper head covers, elasticized like shower caps, so I could tuck my hair underneath.
Theresa glanced over at me and laughed. “This is like striptease in reverse.”
Her joke broke the tension, connecting us with the other workers. We all looked at one another and chuckled, and some of the bolder women began to wave their gear over their heads, doing a quick bump and grind before covering up every bit of exposed flesh. Getting a victim's blood on you was no joke. But it helped to laugh at ourselves.
I went on to don my face shield, a flat piece of thin plastic about twelve inches square, attached at the top to a layer of foam padding designed to fit gently against my forehead. I pulled a strip of elastic up over the back of my head, so that the plastic shield completely covered my face while the top circled my head like the old-fashioned stereotype of a Hollywood Indian's headband. I wished there was something I could put on to cover up the smell, but nothing I've found has ever really worked.
Last but not least came the coverings for our hands. Each of us was issued a pair of cut-proof gloves made from finely woven wire that resembled a miniature version of medieval chain-mail armor. Our supervisors warned us that broken glass and shards of metal were mixed in with the remains. Clumsy as they were, these devices would prevent injuries and the spread of infection through cuts. Thick rubber gloves went on over this armor for yet another layer of protection.
Covered from head to toe with cloth, plastic, paper, and chain mail, all we could see of each other was our eyes. We were finally ready to get down to work.
Someone snapped a few switches and all the lights came on as the huge exhaust fans roared into gear. Autopsy technicians-sometimes called “deaners” for no reason that I could ever tell-began wheeling gurneys into the room. Unlike the gurneys I'd seen in hospitals, these were asymmetrical, one end slightly higher than the other. On each gurney rode a black body bag with a large red number spray-painted on it. “MC- 23,” for example, was the twenty-third bag of remains recovered at Mount Carmel. The spray paint was an efficient-and waterproof-way to mark the bag boldly.
Each autopsy workstation was about ten feet long and three feet deep, with a large stainless steel sink flanked on both sides by elevated countertops. Each sink had three spigots connecting to a spray nozzle, a rubber hose, and a gooseneck faucet, giving us the maximum range of options for washing away the blood and gore. The whole unit rose to meet a three-foot-high backsplash equipped with lights, while the sink itself opened into the maw of a huge garbage disposal unit.
Two large steel rings in front of each sink lined up perfectly with the two large hooks at the end of each gurney. As the technicians wheeled the gurneys up to the sinks, they slipped the hooks into the rings and then used their feet to flip the locks at each of the gurney's four wheels. Now the gurney was part of our workstation. Each gurney had a two-inch hole in its lower end, sealed with a big black rubber stopper. This end now extended well over the lip of the sink, allowing us to uncork the gurney and drain fluids or rinse water down into the sink. The body bags were often simply left on the gurneys, so that we could roll them to another part of the lab without ever disturbing the remains.
Bill joined Dr. Gary Sissler, Theresa went to work with Dr. Peerwani, and I became a part of Dr. Charles Harvey's team. Dr. Harvey appeared to be in his fifties, a little shorter than I, but better nourished. He moved quickly and with purpose, immediately handing me a rectangular blue pan that looked for all the world like my own kitchen dishpan, though this one was filled with bloody remains. I immediately recognized them as pieces of burned skull mixed into a grapefruit-sized wad of baked blood and brains.
“Something just isn't right here,” Dr. Harvey said, looking over my shoulder into the pan. “We originally thought all these people died from the fire. But this woman doesn't seem to have been burned all that badly. Her body was relatively intact and there was no soot in her airway.”
I nodded. Usually, fire victims die from a rapid buildup of carbon monoxide while choking on the smoke. But this one had died before she'd had a chance to inhale anything harmful. Why?