How so? It might possibly arouse their suspicions, but you would hardly be incriminating yourself from the simple fact of reporting the body. They’d have to find solid evidence as well, though you might well be under a cloud for quite some time while they’re looking. It would be different if it was someone you knew, that other people knew you had violent diagreements with, and that the dead person died within a timeframe you can’t account for, or there is forensic evidence linking you to the body; but just reporting it doesn’t give the investigators much to go on.
My father died at home at night and was found by my mom in the morning (separate beds due to snoring). I live down the street with my kids and was getting them ready for the day. She called me. I didn’t really believe it so I came over to help wake him up. But he was cold. Very very cold.
I can’t remember clearly doing it, but we called the funeral home. We had recently buried another family member and dad had been quite sick from Crohn’s disease for years. We weren’t expecting it or anything though.
They called the cops and coroner. It was weird because when the cops got there they wouldn’t let us back in the room. They treated it like a crime scene. They had the coroner pronounce him dead and the home put him on a stretcher in a black bag and took him away. We couldn’t see any of that.
Dad’s GP concluded cause of death as his condition without even an inspection and there was no case or anything but for a little bit we kinda were treated as suspects. And being that we had both been holding him and touching him and crying on him, I almost got worried for a while.
I miss my dad :(.
At present, the USA has the highest incarceration rate of any nation other than the 90,000 person country of Seychelles, or possibly North Korea which is estimated to have a similar incarceration rate. [URL=“http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-kill-citizens-70-times-rate-first-world-nations/”]When comparing the USA and China:
Presently the USA is in a league of its own – it is truly exceptional.
It would add believable dramatic tension for a story set in the USA to include the protagonist’s thought process concerning whether or not to report a body, particularly when she had a relationship with the deceased.
When it comes to real life rather than fiction, one needs to look past the comparative incarceration rates and look at the specific odds in the specific situation.
What are the odds of a person taking her dog for it’s nightly walk being arrested upon her dog discovering a dead stranger by a wheelie bin? Pretty much zero, so she might as well report it rather than potentially arouse suspicion over why she did not report it.
If the person had some sort of relationship with the deceased, was searching for the deceased, found the deceased in an out-of-the-way spot, left physical traces of her being there (footprints, etc.), and might have been observed there, then not reporting would raise suspicion, so as risky as reporting to the authorities would be, particularly in the USA, it likely still would be less risky that not reporting.
There would be no safe course of action but the odds still would be best if the body were to be reported despite certain circumstances significantly increasing the risk of incarceration.
I’m sorry for your loss, jujuju.
<shrug> And we are here in the US and have been using the same firm to deal with the family trust since 1794 and last I looked, we aren’t vampires … though I would have to ask them to recommend a criminal lawyer as trust issues and criminal issues are very different specialties. Though in the case of being put in a cell with another criminal in hopes I would blab, I would follow the advice of one of the lawyers that taught one of my Paralegal Studies classes - inform everybody from the start that I would not discuss any issues of the case with anybody without my lawyer present, and not mention anything about it, or discuss what I was under arrest for at all. If you don’t say anything, then they can’t claim you discussed details.
I twice found deceased people in Chicago on my way to work (I used to leave very early in the morning). Never occurred to me to do anything other than report it. Since this was before the days of cell phones in one case I told the CTA station attendant (deceased person was in the stairwell leading down to the subway) and in another I had to find a business already open and asked them to call 911.
The authorities, when they showed up, said Stairwell Person was most likely someone homeless trying to shelter from the Chicago winter (it was an exceptionally cold night, even by our standards) while out of sight of the station attendant who had frozen to death.
The other person was on the sidewalk bordered by bushes and parked cars. They might have slipped and fallen and frozen there, or had something unfortunate happen. Due to placement they would not have been readily visible until after dawn, which was just about when I was leaving for work.
In both cases I was asked why I was there. Answer: on my way to work. I was asked my name, address, phone number and never heard anything more about it. Particularly in the case of the guy in the subway stairwell, given his placement it was pretty inevitable a commuter was going to find him, the real puzzle was probably whether or not anyone else had simply walked by him, ignoring him. Or maybe, in the pre-dawn darkness, they hadn’t noticed the ice/frost covering his face which was what made me think something was amiss with the guy. I mean, finding people sleeping in stairwells/doorways/subways during harsh winter weather was hardly an unknown occurrence in Chicago in those days, might still be for all I know.
Wrong. You’re cite doesn’t say that at all. It simply explains why the coroner has to be notified. Usually it’s the police/med team that contacts the coroner.
I’ve been a LEO for almost twice as long as Loach. I can tell you if someone finding a body does anything other than call the police or paramedics is going to be instantly suspect. Some of you have some real fucked up thoughts over this. Sheesh! (Yes, I know a couple of the posts were jokes. They were funny. 
)
**What’s the best thing to do […] if you find a dead body in America?
**Same as every other place. Thank your stars and tuck right into it. Free meals are few and far between.
If she was railroaded (and she might have been, I have no knowledge of this case), it wasn’t because she found the bodies, it is because the victims were her sons, and the murder occurred at her house. That is a completely different situation than we are talking about here. Even if we decide that this case is relevant, it hardly supports your point of view, as if she found the bodies of her children, and then “walked away” and didn’t call police, it would have focused even more suspicion on her than there already was.
I’m calling 911 and dispatch can decide who needs to be sent.
The only time I came upon a body it was laying in the middle of the street. I wasn’t sure if it was alive or dead. Being that I was alone and it was @3am I wasn’t getting that close. Dispatch asked me to check and I went close enough to see that the eyes were closed and since there was no smell I figured he was still alive - he was. Just passed out drunk in the middle of the road.
Unless they smell like death or are obviously decomposing I’m not going to assume they are dead. I’ll call 911 and let them handle it - they are the experts, not me.
I cannot imagine wtf I would think it would come back on me.
I also can’t imagine saying nothing, what if the next person who comes along is a kid? Or if the person is actually alive and then dies because they didn’t get medical treatment sooner? If I find a body it’s my responsibility, as an adult, to handle it in a responsible manner.
I did find a body once a long time ago, luckily the guy was not dead. I called 911 dispatch (my husband) who then notified the sheriff’s department. He was told the guy was just drunk and had been laying in our yard all day. He asked the officer to please remove the guy because it was bothering his wife.
This.
If it’s a random body, I think calling your attorney would look really weird. If it’s not a random body, then maybe call your attorney if the police conversation gets too pointed.
ETA: I am, however, female, middle-class, middle-aged, and white, so the police don’t find me a threat and don’t treat me badly. If I were younger, poorer, or a minority, my attitude would be different.
You’re of course right. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
You are not coherent, but, that doesn’t give you a right to be not coherent, or coherent of your rights.
Stop the drugs. They are a downward path.
I am terrified of authorities, I have had nothing but bad experiences whenever someone with power and is professionally suspicious has dealt with me even though I did nothing. I assume they find me odd, and that triggers their spider sense that something is off.
I don’t need that shit, and I am sick of it, I’d probably keep walking.
If I find a body anywhere, I’m calling 911.
I don’t have a lawyer, so that’s out anyway, but I think that even if I did, I’d call 911 first, and call the lawyer afterwards, just to let him/her know what was going on.
If the cops seemed to be questioning me in a way that went beyond how you’d question someone who tripped over a body by accident, I’d ask for a lawyer before being questioned further, but unless things got to that point, I wouldn’t even think about it. I expect my natural revulsion to being around a dead body would come through sufficiently loud and clear that they wouldn’t really consider me a suspect anyway. Hell, I don’t even like looking at dead bodies of people I’ve known when it’s at the viewing at the funeral home.
Is this question presuming that the dead person was obviously murdered? Alternately, is it presuming that the person is displaying signs of rigor mortis?
Because if it presumes neither, then I would think calling 911 is the best course of action, because the person could still be saved. If a person does not have a pulse but is still warm (or, alternately, is suffering from hypothermia), then calling 911 could conceivably save the person’s life, in which case it would clearly be the best legal option as there would be no victim.
Or of course, if you can begin to administer CPR and get someone else to call 911, that would be even better.
I feel like this answer isn’t really in the spirit of the text of the OP, but it is in the spirit of the thread title, so I figured I’d offer it.
I called the cops. Funny, the dispatcher’s reaction was a loud “YIKES!” 
They picked me up and took me where the body was. Never showed any interest in me as a suspect. Turned out it was natural causes.
Well, I was with 2 of my 3 kids at the time, tho neither of them was yet 12. My son was SO pissed that he missed it. And it was in the middle of a river. No sticks around long enough, so I threw rocks at it to see what it was. Couldn’t believe it was actually a body, but when the head bobbed up, it pretty was. Kept waiting for the cops to say, “It looks like someone was chunking rocks at it…” :o
I’m pretty sure that the person most likely to be the murderer is the person in the victim’s circle of family, friends, and associates who is a drunk or druggy.
Please remember that incarceration rates, particularly with countries like China, are meaningless. China is very secretive about their “justice” system. Incarceration rates are what they themselves report them to be, or the best guess of outside organizations. They also lead the world in executions. No need to incarcerate a dead prisoner. “Criminals” in China also tend to disappear at an alarming rate, further understating the incarceration rate.
I’m not defending the US incarceration rate, but at least it’s, for the most part, verifiable.
You people understand that lawyers don’t work for free, right? I can’t wrap my head around the idea of encountering a stiff and the first instinct is to *get a fucking $200/hr. scumbag involved. * 