What happened to Salvador Ramos' body? Texas coroner had to go 'victim by victim' to ID remains
Update: Autopsy on the Uvalde school shooter's body was conducted only three days after his death. However, Uvalde funeral homes initially refused to take the body of the Texas school shooter Salvador Ramos. Uvalde's coroner Eulalio "Halo" Diaz Jr told the Houston Chronicle that his remains were stored 150 miles away in a morgue in Lockhart. The coroner said, "It took three, three and a half weeks to get him released to the family. They were fighting with each other."
The teen's funeral arrangements were eventually handled by Castle Ridge in Crystal City, which is located 40 miles outside Uvalde. He was later cremated on the edge of downtown San Antonio, more than 80 miles outside the city.
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Eulalio "Lalo" Diaz Jr serves as the small town's de facto coroner and is one of Uvalde's Justice of the Peace. Diaz recalled his heartbreaking job of identifying the victims of the Robb Elementary school shooting and also revealed about the gunman, Salvador Ramos' body. The 18-year-old unleashed the massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead on May 24.
Diaz spoke about the gruesome task of identifying the bodies of the victims killed at Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, Texas on May 24. "That's when they tell me there are 16 to 17 victims and most of them are children and that's just of course not what I wanted to hear," he said. "I was just floored by that and in disbelief that this was happening in our town", Diaz told The US Sun.
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Knowing that the Uvalde school shooting was one of the deadliest massacres, Diaz decided to call the Bexar County Medical Examiner in San Antonio to assist him before entering the classroom where the victims were. For Diaz, identifying the children was difficult because none of them had IDs on them as adults do. "I didn't know what the scene was gonna be like but I knew the children wouldn't have IDs or name badges so we won't know who these kids are until we assess the process of what to do," Diaz said.
He and the medical examiner decided to ask for pictures of the missing kids in order to identify them, as well as for descriptions of what they were wearing, and what kind of hair or features they had. Then, he went victim by victim comparing the pictures with the bodies spread across the classroom. Therefore, they were identified by pictures and descriptions of their clothes, hair, and other features.
"We pretty much went person by person, victim by victim, with pictures, just trying to make sure that this person matched the description, and we were able to clear all the names," Diaz told The US Sun. Besides the victims' bodies, Diaz also had to look through shooter Ramos' body.
"We also had to handle him, so he was separated from the victims immediately there at the location and he was the last one to leave," an emotional Diaz shared. "I made sure I signed the order for the victims, sent them to the medical examiner's office first. I signed a separate order for him - he didn't leave until all the victims left."
Diaz then sent the gunman's body to an undisclosed county. "He was not going to the medical examiner until all the victims were back in Uvalde. Once all the victims were released back to Uvalde, we sent him to the medical examiner's office". As per Diaz, Ramos' family hasn't given any instructions on what they want to do with his body. "As of right now, the family still hasn't given me instructions but once they do then I'll release him to the family and sign an order allowing the morgue that's holding him to release him to the funeral home that's going to handle the shooter," Diaz said.
Meanwhile, the families of the victims are burying their loved children and are still dealing with the tragedy. "The whole town is first of all in shock that this happened to our community, and second of all asking 'what happened?'" said Diaz. "That's the question on everybody's mind. Hopefully, they can get some answers soon."