GOVERNMENT
Mysteries of the missing Lots of people come to Maricopa to live. Some, unwittingly, come here to die
BY MONICA D. SPENCER
Y
those, 18 are suspected to be undocumented migrants from Mexico and other Central American countries. “They were found in areas where migrants typically are known to cross,” Dodt said. “The belongings with them tend to be Mexican pesos, non-traceable cellphones, water jugs, camouflaged backpacks and clothing items. And they’re all skeletal.” Borderlands Experts say there are migrant corridors a “stone’s throw” from Maricopa, weaving through the mountains and brush flanking Thunderbird Farms and Hidden Valley. A surge occurred last year with border crossings when the Biden Administration lifted Title 42, an immigration policy re- established during the pandemic to limit the spread of the disease. In its most recent quarterly report, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said it processed more than 629,000 people at the border — as many people as live in Boston. This included more than 219,000 processed in Arizona. Around that time, towns and cities like Bisbee and Casa Grande reported seeing higher numbers of undocumented migrants
released when seeking asylum from their home countries, with Casa Grande estimating hundreds of drop-offs weekly. Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb said he has helped carry the bodies of migrants he found dead. “A lot of the times we land or hoist them up into the helicopter and fly them to one of the border patrol stations and turn them over,” he told Feb. 14. Humane Borders Board Chair Laurie Cantillo believes there is an element missing from the story. “There’s so much noise about the politics of the border, but so little being said about the men, women and children dying out there,” she said. “There’s much more at play than politics. It’s about humanity.” The journey Humane Borders asserts the trek from Nogales to Tucson alone could take a person about five days of walking and most are grossly unprepared. Cantillo said while migration in the Southwest has traditionally consisted of working aged men from Mexico and Central America, the number of families with kids crossing the border has grown exponentially.
OU CAN’T SEE IT, BUT YOU CAN feel it. It’s a visceral reaction. Like your body knows what lies inside those thick plastic bags on
cold metal tables when you step into the freezer at the Pinal County Medical Examiner’s Office. A foul, almost sickly smell hits the nose just after the puff of icy air. It causes your chest to tighten, your heart rate to jump and the hair to rise on the back of your neck. This is where the medical examiner keeps nearly two dozen unidentified remains, each simply labeled with a case number. They were given a name at birth. They yearn to be given a name in death. Who are they? What brought them into the desert only to die alone and unknown? That’s an answer PCMEO medicolegal investigator Suzi Dodt hopes to find after she received a $500,000 grant last month from the National Institute of Justice, an arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. But she has her suspicions. “We think that most of our skeletal remains are migrants,” Dodt said. Pinal County has 147 unidentified persons cases, about 20 of which are stored in bags and boxes inside the medical examiner’s freezer. Of
147 UNIDENTIFIED BODIES FROM PINAL COUNTY 20 STORED IN PINAL COUNTY FREEZER
InMaricopa.com | March 2024
March 2024 | InMaricopa.com
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