Scared Sober: Using Death as Deterrent

Two erect arms poked out of the bloodstained sheet.

Craig Harvey, chief of operations for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, pushed one of them gently down.

It bounced back.

“Jesus,” said Vanessa Rice, 20, who watched the scene last week as part the Youthful Drunk Driving Visitation Program. “This makes you want to drink.”

The body had been discovered in a parking lot just hours earlier. Its arms were in rigor mortis, the natural stiffening of the muscles after death. No autopsy had been done, but a possible cause of death was heroin overdose.

Linking Behavior to Consequences

Established in Los Angeles County in 1989, the Youthful Drunk Driving Visitation Program was created as an alternative sentencing method for defendants ages 16 to 24 caught driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. It is designed to make its participants think about the consequences of their actions by letting them see death up close at the largest coroner’s office under one roof in the country.

The program has since expanded to include defendants who have committed other minor offenses such as speeding, drug or weapons possession or truancy. And judges also now use it as a sentence for anyone older than 16.

The three-hour classes are held three times a week, with about 20 offenders per session. The program begins with a series of graphic photos depicting gruesome deaths that occurred as a result of drunk driving accidents. There is a tour through the autopsy rooms and “the crypt,” a 42-degree cooling room that can store nearly 300 bodies. Class ends with a speech by a surviving victim, such as Michele Sapper, who was disabled by a drunk driver in 1984.

“Sometimes you’re forced to live with what you’re left with,” Sapper said. “The dead people are gory and gross, but I am reality.”

During a recent session, Harvey reached under the sheet that was loosely wrapped around the man who probably died of a drug overdose. The coroner’s official pulled out a baseball cap that was found with the body. The embroidered words on it read: “2000 Party Crew.”

“He ain’t partying no more,” said a young man who had been sentenced to the program for drunk driving.

Marlene Kristovich, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, rallied support for the program in its early stages. Since then, she has frequently taken advantage of the alternative sentencing method because, she said, it can be a wake-up call. Several thousand defendants have completed the program over the years.

“You have to evaluate the offender in front of you, and if you think it might benefit them, then use it,” she said. “It makes you stop and think . . . about who you might hurt, what destruction might happen and who, other than yourself, is affected by what you’re doing.”

Ivia Cotto, 20, who was sentenced to the program for driving faster than 100 mph, said seeing dead bodies was heartbreaking. Cotto’s baby was in the car when she was caught speeding. After watching a slide show that included a photo of a baby whose neck was broken in a car accident, Cotto gasped.

“I needed something like this for me to realize how important it is for me to drive safely,” she said. “It was an awful lesson. It’s never going to happen again in my life.”

When the fact that someone’s life can end so easily does not jolt participants, the gruesome realities inside the exam and storage rooms can.

The scent is stifling: a combination of odors from bodies that have not been washed, from human decomposition and from disinfectant that is used to clean the building.

“This isn’t working!” said one participant, referring to the surgical mask he was wearing to block germs, as he caught a whiff of the smell.

Critics Question Program’s Usefulness

A bug zapper, which catches flies, buzzed periodically.

Participants looked into the first autopsy room. A nearly naked male body rested on a metal gurney. The face and genitals were covered with sheets. A giant belly was exposed, baring a rainbow swirl of color. The pink and red came from livor mortis, post-death skin discoloration. The blue, green and purple indicated that decomposition had begun.

Next, the participants peered through a window into the forensic autopsy room. A medical examiner wearing a protective blue suit and a respiratory mask sewed up a woman’s body. Her chest had been carved open in the shape of the letter Y, from shoulder to shoulder, and then down the rib cage. The body looked plastic, mannequin-like. The only sign that this skin-covered shell had once been alive was the vivid red blood inside the open chest.

“Ew, ew! Oh, my God!” said a female participant, as she jumped up and down while watching the end of the autopsy.

The group continued down the hall, passing a corpse covered except for its feet--each one displaying five perfectly painted red toenails.

Then, the participants looked into the chilly storage room. Inside, unclaimed bodies were lined up on what resembled four-level bunks. Each body was wrapped in sheets of plastic, looking, Harvey said, “like burritos.”

Although officials hope the program shocks defendants into corrective behavior, critics call it heavy-handed and ineffective.

Dr. Marc Kern, a counselor for Addiction Alternatives in Los Angeles, said people are more likely to change if they receive help boosting their self-esteem and gaining access to job and educational opportunities.

“There’s no understanding of where they are psychologically,” he said. “It’s like going to a scary movie. It may numb them to further realities. It’s not hitting them where they need to be reached.”

Lloyd Amborn, operations administrator for the San Diego County coroner, said his office decided not to create such a program, even though the state had suggested it.

“Our medical examiner just feels it is an inappropriate thing to do,” Amborn said. “If they see an autopsy, for youngsters, that can be very traumatizing. It’s a very invasive procedure.”

Lucious Champagne, 42, who went through the program last week as punishment for drunk driving, called it fascinating. He wished his 18-year-old daughter could have gone through it too.

For Rice, the experience of receiving a drunk driving ticket has changed her perspective. Spending the night in jail, having her license suspended, getting fined, and ultimately, seeing dead bodies for the first time, was harshly enlightening, she said.

“I will never drink and drive again,” she said.

Coroner’s officials hope that is true.

Harvey told participants to ask themselves what they can do to avoid their next--and final--visit to the coroner’s office for as long as possible.

“We don’t want your business,” he said. “I really mean it when I say, I hope I never have to see any of you again.”