Den Mother to the Dead
Roberta Geiselhart’s job is to investigate unexplained deaths. But her passion is to transform how the living deal with dying.
By Beth Hawkins
Photo by Jonathan Chapman
(page 2 of 4)
As the supervisor of 14 investigators, Geiselhart has a hand in virtually every one of those cases. While the details vary, the bulk of her staff’s work involves collecting remains, identifying the deceased, tracking down next of kin, and gathering information that the pathologists need to make their determinations. Often enough, this process is straightforward. But the cases that resist resolution can be very complicated, and investigators often rely on a roster of specialists to help: dentists, sketch artists, facial reconstruction experts, anthropologists, and even entomologists.Formally, Geiselhart’s job is to nail down the details associated with death. To hike up her skirt and climb into a dumpster, if need be. But what has made Geiselhart a pioneer in her field is that she is equally passionate about helping the living. When she became an investigator, most in the business thought what they did was too gruesome for the general public to acknowledge, let alone embrace. Everyone was better off if pastors, therapists, and funeral directors took care of the living; pathologists and death investigators should stick to the cadavers.
Geiselhart wanted to do things differently. As a former nurse, she knew that those who’ve lost a loved one suddenly or violently can’t begin to heal until they have a full understanding of what happened. It bothered her that most coroners and medical examiners usually spent little time with bereaved families. Geiselhart didn’t just want to attend to the dead; she wanted to nurse the survivors, too.
The first thing Geiselhart does when she gets to work each day is review open cases. The top page on each file is referred to as the pumpkin sheet, due to its color, and includes a checklist about the deceased’s identity. Subsequent pages contain more detail and space for the ME’s forensic pathologists to scribble questions and requests.
The investigators share the basement with equipment for processing cadavers and evidence. There are two coolers: one for tissue samples, and another for bodies, which lie on large wheeled carts called body pans, not in drawers (as on TV). There are freezers for more samples and rooms where tissue preserved in formalin, the aqueous form of formaldehyde, is stored in specially vented drawers (formalin is carcinogenic—and smells horrible). There’s an X-ray machine and, for reference, a model skeleton named Slim.
Throughout the day an intercom periodically crackles to report a death that has to be processed. The investigators’ desks are arrayed around a big lazy Susan where the pumpkin files sit. When an investigator’s shift ends, another picks up where they left off. When every box on the pumpkin sheet is checked and every request for information met, one of the office’s pathologists issues a death certificate. The investigators then call the next of kin and talk them through the findings.
Many cases are closed long before Geiselhart and her staff have their last contact with grieving relatives. Sometimes years after their loved one has died, people call with questions. Some need to know the manner of death; they couldn’t stomach hearing about the details at the time. Many are mourning a suicide—or resisting the notion that the person they knew would take such action. “There are people who just are stuck,” explains Geiselhart.
Often, people call in the middle of the night. They might be reading the autopsy report—usually not for the first time. “People don’t realize when we talk to them how different their lives are going to be. Months later it hits them,” says Geiselhart. “I say, ‘This may not be the time, but keep this number handy and call when it is.’”
The job is a lot more complicated than it was when Geiselhart started. Better forensics mean better information, but it also means more possible routes of investigation. The ongoing influx of immigrants into Minnesota means accommodating the death rituals of numerous cultures. Most problematic, people are more transient, which makes it harder to locate families.
On a recent afternoon, Geiselhart’s desk held several puzzles, one of which involved a tissue-sample collection kit from a private lab. The lab was trying to determine paternity so a dead man’s unrecognized child could draw on his Social Security. Normally all the ME’s office needs to do this is a $75 fee, but the lab wouldn’t process the sample without the dead man’s signature. “Now how’m I supposed to get that?” Geiselhart said without a hint of sarcasm.
Geiselhart has managed to survive in such a macabre atmosphere because of her high tolerance for the grisly and her low tolerance for boredom. She grew up the youngest of five in a working-class family in Merrill, Wisconsin, about 20 miles north of Wausau. In the third grade, she came down with rheumatic fever and had to spend two years at home. Her mother had long been captivated by educator Maria Montessori’s theories and encouraged Geiselhart to indulge her curiosities. She still has a restless intellect as an adult, and unwinds by reading stories about medical mysteries, bioethical dilemmas, and people who endured dramatic ordeals.
To Geiselhart, every case holds mysteries. She has a photographic memory: Even years after a case closes, it’s rare for her to have to consult a file to recall the deceased when questions come up. “There’s some unique stuff in everybody’s death,” she says.
Because few people want such a morbid job—and because death investigators have to know a lot about myriad medical and technical issues—Geiselhart has a hard time finding good candidates to fill open slots. Lots of people who try it don’t last long. “It requires an intangible quality,” says Milwaukee County medical examiner Jeff Jentzen, who hired Geiselhart when he was the Hennepin County ME.
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