Flatwater Free Press - Balloons in his favorite colors β black, blue and white β drifted up from the courtyard at Underwood Tower. His family, wearing matching T-shirts made for the occasion, and a group of his old neighbors gathered in the scorching heat to release the balloons into a clear August sky. His birth certificate read Pedtro Chappell, but nobody called him that.
Family knew him as Pete. An older brother to six siblings, Pete grew up babysitting when mom was at work, and he carried that dependability with him through a challenging adulthood. He was only a call away when his sisters needed help cleaning or moving. Pete lived in Underwood Tower, a public housing complex in central Omaha. The year-old died from natural causes, the police concluded in their report. Their training, access to resources and approaches to the job vary widely.
Some appear to have no training at all. Nebraska law gives them authority to decide when and how a death is investigated, without oversight or assistance from a state medical examiner. Since then, the statewide unattended autopsy rate has dropped by about half, according to a Flatwater Free Press analysis of mortality data from the U.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Security video shows Pete falling in a parking lot during what was likely his last outing. Bystanders said he was stumbling. Then he went into his apartment. His lifeless body emerged from unit on a gurney. They were planning their usual road trip to Arkansas to belatedly celebrate the Fourth of July with family. Pete sounded like he was in good health, Denece said. He was excited to go. A week later, two police officers and an employee of the Omaha Housing Authority found Pete dead on his apartment floor, according to an incident report.
When Denece heard the news, she broke down crying at work. She felt sad, angry and confused: How did this happen? Where Pete died, autopsies are relatively common β at least by Nebraska standards. Separated by a mile stretch of Interstate 80 in central Nebraska, Buffalo and Lincoln counties saw a similar number of unattended deaths over six recent years β and , respectively. Lower autopsy rates in rural areas may reflect a lack of resources, like staff and funding, and distance from morgues, Robert Anderson, chief of mortality statistics at the CDC.
