Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

‘Never be afraid to show emotion’: What death has taught Clark County coroner

Coroner Michael Murphy at Office

Steve Marcus

Clark County Coroner Michael Murphy stands in an autopsy room Monday, April 20, 2015, at the Coroner’s Office. Murphy is leaving for a job with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Click to enlarge photo

Outgoing Clark County Coroner Michael Murphy, left, poses with new coroner John Fudenberg after Fudenberg's official appointment at the Clark County Government Center Tuesday, April 21, 2015. Fudenberg has served as assistant coroner since 2003.

The elderly woman died in her chair, covered by an afghan, while watching television in the middle of the night. The day before, she and her family had buried her husband of 58 years in the veteran’s cemetery. They were World War II sweethearts.

Clark County Coroner Mike Murphy struggled to contain his tears as he talked with the woman’s children. This case, the first he attended in person as manager of the county’s coroner-medical examiner’s office, provoked too many emotions. Murphy’s father had died three months earlier, and his parents, also WWII sweethearts, had been married 58 years.

“It really struck a chord with me,” Murphy said.

But the former police officer had been trained not to show weakness. Tears didn’t seem appropriate, so he apologized to the woman’s daughter. How she responded transformed Murphy’s approach for the remainder of his career.

“She put her arm around me and said, ‘I am so very, very grateful that you’re the one who came out to handle my mother’s case, because I’d like to know that she means something,’” Murphy recalled. “I learned at that point that I would never, ever, ever be afraid to show emotion.”

Today will be an emotional day. After 13 years at the helm of an office that handled more than 15,000 deaths last year, Murphy will give up his work cellphone, return his county car and say goodbye, at least temporarily, to his staff. In July, Murphy will start a new job at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, running a program that aims to identify child victims.

• • •

On his morning walks, Murphy, 61, marvels at the sunrise and the natural beauty of the desert. He knows life can be cut short. Car crashes, overdoses and heart attacks kill every day in the Las Vegas Valley.

That’s why Murphy and his family — his wife, three sons and mother — never part without saying, “I love you.” They don’t want to risk the possibility of not getting the chance again.

For all the coroner's office has taught him, it still hasn’t prepared him for the inevitable end. Murphy admits he hasn't come to peace with death, despite answering death calls at least 25 times a year and seeing thousands more bodies enter the morgue.

Murphy started his public service career in 1972 as a police cadet in Kansas City, Kan. Eight years later, he moved to Nevada and worked at police departments in Boulder City, Mesquite and Las Vegas.

In 2003, he succeeded Ron Flud as coroner, a job that married Murphy's law enforcement and business backgrounds. He has a doctorate in business administration from California Pacific University.

When Murphy asked his staff what needed improvement, they mentioned the office’s cold cases, the 167 dead people whose names were unknown. The group brainstormed ways to identify them. Murphy decided to post photos of the victims online, a radical move at the time that many criticized.

“I was too naïve to think it was a bad idea,” Murphy said.

But it worked. Since then, the coroner’s office has identified 88 of the victims.

One was a little girl known as Jane “Cordova” Doe, a 3-year-old whose beaten body was found in a trash bin at the Villa Cordova Apartments in Las Vegas. The hunt for information about the girl’s identity lasted six weeks, a painstakingly long time for investigators.

“I remember exactly what I was doing and exactly where I was and exactly who I was with at the moment they called me and said they had identified her,” Murphy said.

Murphy's wife, Benet, said she hadn't seen her husband cry before he became coroner.

“This job ... has given him his emotions back,” she said.

The realities of the job also bled into their personal lives on occasion. Benet Murphy recalled an incident in which her husband reamed their two youngest sons after he discovered they had gone snowboarding off-trail in Utah. Murphy later admitted his overreaction stemmed from a recent case. A teenage boy who resembled one of their sons had died in a freak avalanche on Mount Charleston.

“He is truly honored and humbled to service the families,” Benet Murphy said. “This is not just a job for him.”

• • •

On Tuesday, the Clark County Commission promoted assistant coroner John Fudenberg to succeed Mike Murphy. Fudenberg described Murphy as a natural leader with gifted public-speaking abilities and progressive ideas.

“Mike is a very dynamic personality,” Fudenberg said. “No matter where he goes, he is known for that big personality.”

Several years ago, reality television producers followed Murphy on the job for eight weeks for a pilot called “Postmortem in Vegas.” It aired on the Lifetime Movie Network, but the production company chose not to move forward with the series.

Murphy said he agreed to the reality show because he thought it could be used to help identify more dead people. The county’s unidentified count now numbers more than 200.

Murphy's new job at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children will allow him to continue his quest. He will be bi-coastal, working in Alexandria, Va., and traveling often to Las Vegas to visit his family. It’s time, he said, for a new challenge and new leadership in the coroner’s office.

“I would hope my legacy is that I left it better than I found it,” he said.

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