VAN BUREN -- Law enforcement agencies throughout Crawford County will benefit from the new sheriff's investigations laboratory and county coroner's office that opened Monday next door to the county jail.
About 75 people turned out for a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday morning at the Crawford County Criminal Investigation Division-Forensics Center, which will provide the coroner's office a secure place to hold and examine bodies and give the sheriff's office more space for its investigations equipment.
The center also will provide a place where families can have a comforting environment to identify and see their loved one through a viewing window without tainting any evidence on the body, Coroner Pam Wells said.
"We wanted the families to feel like this is a place where they can grieve, they can cry, cuss and scream. They can do whatever they want," Wells said. "We wanted them to know their loved one was cared for."
The $600,000 center opened in late September. It holds a cooler large enough to hold nine bodies and an examination room. A room in the building holds several pieces of sheriff's equipment, such as a fingerprint processor and evidence dryer, that could not fit in the sheriff's space in the county jail.
The money to design and build the center was left over from the bond sales used to build the county jail, County Judge Dennis Gilstrap said. He said the bond money, which is being paid off by a one-half percent sales tax, was dedicated to build the jail and other law enforcement purposes.
The jail was completed under budget because the size was reduced to ensure the job cost fell within the construction budget, Gilstrap said.
"So, this still is falling under construction of the jail because of the lack of space they have" for their lab equipment, he said.
The lab equipment and the forensics laboratory will benefit all the law enforcement agencies in the county along with state and federal agencies, Sheriff Ron Brown said. It also allows deputies to perform more efficient investigations.
"Instead of going to another facility or out of the county, it allows us to maintain that chain of evidence, that chain of custody, and bring it back here," Brown said.
Because of the lack of space for the coroner's office, the county for years had to keep the coroner's two-man cooler in a funeral home in Fort Smith. Any investigation of the body by law enforcement in Crawford County had to be done in Fort Smith.
The ability to preserve the body in a temperature-controlled, secure environment is the most important benefit the forensics center has for the state Crime Laboratory, laboratory Executive Director Kermit Channell said. It also allows the coroner to secure evidence as quickly as possible.
Coroners are trained to collect biological fluids, such as blood, vitreous humor or urine, found in cases such as fatal vehicle accidents where toxicology tests but no autopsy are required.
"Truly, this is a model for the state and I think citizens of Arkansas would be better served if, in fact, these kinds of facilities would be in every county," Channell said.
There are only eight or nine other counties in the state that have their own morgue and forensics unit such as the center in Crawford County, said Kevin Cleghorn, the Saline County coroner and president of the Arkansas Coroners' Association.
He said more forensic centers would help law enforcement agencies at every level to improve investigations, improve relationships between agencies, and give families of the people who have died answers they need and deserve.
Wells said she has a staff of four. Her office responds to calls for any unattended death including cases where someone dies at home or in a fatal accident, a crime, a homicide, a suicide or a nursing home.
Metro on 11/06/2018