Phoenix works to ID victims of heat wave

updated 9:41 a.m. ET July 24, 2005

PHOENIX - Almost every day, the lady with the chestnut hair and slight smile stopped by the tire shop to ask for a drink. Jose Perez would take a break from his work to offer a cup of water or whatever he had on hand.

She was 50ish, he guessed, and painfully skinny. But friendly, too. She once mentioned having kids, though Perez had no idea how many or where. She lived with a man under a plywood shelter on the other side of a chain-link fence behind the store.

Perez last saw her a week ago Sunday, when the mercury hit 116 degrees. She lay on a mound of dirt outside the shelter as paramedics worked to revive her. The skinny lady with the smile died right before his eyes. “Scary,” the 20-year-old says.

Perez never even knew her name.

In the span of a week, in the throes of a record heat wave, this transient and 13 others perished on the streets of metropolitan Phoenix. They lived in obscurity, and many of them died the same way — anonymous, ignored, alone. Their bodies were found crumpled on sidewalks near strip malls or in the shadow of downtown skyscrapers. Some were discovered only after strangers stumbled upon them and dialed 911.

Now, as Salvation Army volunteers pass out water and social workers coax vagabonds into shelters, the city is grappling with another challenge: How to put a name to the nameless, find their families and bury the dead.

“Hopefully he gets a nice funeral, he gets to rest in peace,” Rosalie Munoz says.

She stands in the parking lot behind America Mufflers a few miles west of downtown, sipping a cold drink through a straw. She points to the wall where, on Monday afternoon, she and her boyfriend found a man known on the streets as Martin.

They’d seen him around, pushing a grocery cart and distributing cards explaining that he was a deaf-mute in need of spare change. On Monday, however, Martin was slumped against the wall under the scalding sun. His cart — and his pulse — were gone.

Munoz surmises that anyone wandering by probably thought Martin had passed out. “He’s a drunk,” she explains, matter-of-factly.

Her boyfriend, Jason Delgado, wonders. “What if the first person who walked by had done something or stopped to say, ‘Hey, dude, you all right?’ Maybe he’d still be around,” he says.

In a police statement, Martin was simply a “homeless male found dead rear parking lot of store.” The two who found him, who knew little more than his name and disabilities and demons, knew much more than most.

Two identified so far
Phoenix police so far have identified two of the dead: 47-year-old Ruben Lopez, discovered in a grassy patch near the vehicle where he lived, and 52-year-old Richard Pacheco, who died shortly after fire officials responded to a report of a man vomiting along a road. Both were found on Sunday; authorities had no other information about them.

All the bodies are being examined by the county medical examiner’s office, which will perform autopsies to determine cause of death and obtain fingerprints.

It is only the first step in a lengthy process.

“If things go as planned, bingo — there that person is,” says Phoenix Detective Tony Morales. “That’s not always the case. The big problem is finding any next of kin. They’re homeless, they come from who knows where. Most of them don’t carry a phone book in their pockets saying if something happens to them call ‘Dad’ at this number. It takes a lot of legwork.”

“Sometimes,” he adds, “we strike out.”

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