The Montgomery County Coroner’s Office has no system to track the number of complaints it receives regarding theft from the personal effects of bodies at the morgue, despite knowing such thefts have occurred.

County Coroner Kent Harshbarger said he has made restitution in two cases, although no one in his office has been linked to the thefts.

In response, he has increased security measures, including installing a video surveillance camera and securing cash under $300 in clear, heat sealed bags to prevent tampering.

“You have to control for human wrong doing,” Harshbarger said

Approximately 2,000 human remains pass through the morgue per year and over 5,000 case files are created annually. Most inquiries about missing items are the result of miscommunication between family members, Harshbarger said. The Coroner’s Office does not have a centralized file to track complaints, nor does Harshbarger see the need for one. When cash or valuables are reported missing, the complaint is investigated in-house and documentation is filed in the case record.

“There is no index kept in a way that makes them readily available,” said Harshbarger, adding he believes the system is adequate. “Creating a log would be a waste of time and staff effort.”

Dr. Gregory A. Schmunk, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, said to the best of his knowledge, no coroner’s office has a procedure that records complaints in a central location.

“I was formerly the chief in San Jose and we didn’t there. I also checked with another chief of a large office and had the same response,” Schmunk said.

Harshbarger said he is told of cases where there is a substantiated loss of money or valuables.

When the Dayton Daily News requested public records regarding complaints of theft from families, hospitals or funeral homes about missing cash over the last two years, Harshbarger recalled three incidents since late 2011, but he could not provide documentation verifying there were no others.

Greg Lawson, a policy analyst for the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, questions what happens when there is a personnel change and institutional memory, like that of a longtime employee, is lost. He believes the public would have an interest in seeing the reports of missing items and resolutions in each case documented in one place.

“An Excel spreadsheet would be sufficient,” Lawson said. “The Buckeye Institute is always about transparency. I don’t see why it would be that difficult. It doesn’t have to be the whole file. It could be superficial information, so if you need to locate a file, you can.”

Mike Fox, chief investigator for the coroner’s office, said theft could not be proven in any of the three cases and no charges were filed.

The first incident — a report by a family member that $177 was missing from a relative’s belongings — occurred in October 2011. An investigator for the coroner’s office documented that the money was found in the pants pocket of the 72-year old Dayton man at his home, where he passed away.

“We collected it and we documented it. When we went to release it, it was gone,” Harshbarger said.

At least six employees had access to the cash over several days, he said.

On Nov. 18, Ken Betz, director of the coroner’s office and the Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab, wrote in the man’s file that the $177.08 could not be located.

“After investigation and review of personal property in evidence room, (evelope with cash) missing,” Betz wrote.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office was contacted, Betz said. Detectives interviewed the six employees with no determination or conclusions made.

“The only possibility is that somebody within our office took it,”Harshbarger said.

The coroner than purchased a $1,720.99 video camera and installed it in the morgue in an area where employees inventory and bag personal effects. Investigators for the Coroner’s Office routinely photograph and make a list of personal items at crime scenes and technicians do the same as bodies come into the county morgue from a home, hospital or other facility.

Because the night morgue technicians do not have access to the property room, personal items such as cash up to $300 or jewelry are stored in brown evidence bags and sealed with tape. Harshbarger said the tape is supposed to cover the entire bag opening, but that doesn’t always happen.

The bags hang on a board in the morgue where they are readily available for release to families and funeral homes, in an area routinely accessed by county staff and others from private livery services. Property exceeding $300 is secured in the Coroner’s office and families must go through Montgomery County Probate Court to obtain it.

“It’s a balancing game between convenience for the family and security. That said, I bought a camera,” Harshbarger said.

The second incident took place in July 2012 and involved $90, which was initially discovered by a coroner’s investigator in the wallet of a 61-year old Dayton man, along with his Ohio Identification Card.

“Our paperwork documents that we released it to the funeral home, but we weren’t 100 percent certain,” Harshbarger said. “Now, we insist, when we release property to a funeral home, they inventory it.”

Harshbarger said the video surveillance camera was in place when the second incident occurred, but only the backs of employees could be viewed. The camera angle has been adjusted.

The final case involved a body transported in December by Ratliff First Call from Mt. Orab Hospital in Brown County to the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office. The family of the deceased claimed the man had $90 in cash at the hospital, but only $27.88 was returned to them.

Gilbert Ratliff, president of the body hauling service, said he never accepts personal belongings from hospitals.

“If there was a package, it would have been in the body bag and I didn’t know anything about it,” he said.

The coroner’s office made restitution in the first two cases, because Harshbarger couldn’t prove what happened to the money. In the third instance, his office had never documented receipt of the $90.

“Based on a internal investigation, No report was filed with the police/sheriff since we could not determine the location, city or county, where the discrepancy occurred,” Betz said.

Harshbarger said the morgue staff documented that the body came in with $27.88, not the $90 family members thought he had. The hospital had placed the money in a “bio-hazard” transport baggy like a Ziplock bag, he said.

Montgomery County is now using clear bags to store personal items that can be heat sealed, because they don’t have to be opened in order to inventory the contents.