NPRProPublica
Post Mortem
Death Investigation in America

Map Death in America

Death investigation in America involves a complicated patchwork of systems. There are centralized systems run by chief medical examiners (the 16 states colored beige); decentralized systems with a coroner in every county; and hybrid mixtures of both.

Roll over your state to learn more.


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key

  • Centralized State Medical Examiner System
  • County Coroner System
  • County Medical Examiner System
  • Mixed County Medical Examiner and Coroner System

Source: A survey of more than 60 of the nation's largest medical examiner and coroner offices conducted by ProPublica, FRONTLINE, and NPR.

Built using the ProPublica Forensics API. ProPublica's Jeff Larson contributed to development. ProPublica interns Liz Day and Sydney Lupkin contributed research for this project as did Sheelagh McNeill, Kitty Bennett, FRONTLINE's Jackie Bennion and NPR's Barbara Van Woerkom.

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