What a former LA death investigator learned from years on the job

A routine traffic stop put then-police officer Paul Parker in a precarious situation, which nearly resulted in him dying. It also made him think he wasn't cut out for the job. But there was another one that instantly attracted him.

"I wanted to see where my physical body would have gone had [the other guy] been successful at killing me," said Parker, a former chief deputy director for the L.A. County medical examiner.

So Parker left the police ranks and began volunteering at medical examiners' offices.

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Parker joined AirTalk, LAist 89.3's daily news program, to share some of the insight (and turmoil) that can come when you spend so much of your life around death. His new memoir, In the Shadows of Death: Writing Life's Final Chapter, explores his experience advocating for the deceased, the challenges in prioritizing his own health, and how he's turned toward advocacy for his fellow death investigators.

Death becomes commonplace

If you or I saw a dead body, we'd surely remember all the details — the look and smell, the context and visceral feeling in our bodies. But for people working in death investigation — from doctors to autopsy assistants — death is so commonplace its hard to remember one from the next.

"What we see is abnormal," Parker said, "but we begin to believe it's normal."

This desensitization might make the job easier on a daily basis, but it can have long-term repercussions. How you cope, he said, can make or break you.

The odds don't match the perception

Even on his drive to LAist studios from San Diego, he admitted to remembering all the places along the freeway where he was called to investigate a death. There are only so many bizarre deaths you can witness before you start believing it could happen to you.

"You're always waiting for the truck next to you — the tire to explode and come through the window," Parker said.

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Paul Parker

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"If you can learn to cope in healthy ways, it gives you an appreciation to live every moment," which is something he said he had to learn the hard way.

An honorable death for all

Parker said when you work in death investigation, "it is your identity." He described how it interfered with his personal life, ruining a marriage, and him spiraling out of control with a drinking habit.

His frustrations weren't that his loved ones didn't understand his work. His frustrations, he said, were with the people who did — his coworkers.

"Maybe they weren't looking out for families as well as I thought that they should," Parker said.

He admits, talking to families is difficult and medical examiner offices often offload that conversation to someone else. But Parker firmly believes, "Whatever you don't tell someone about the death of their loved on, they're going to fill in anyway."

It's up to management to remind employees "what we're truly here to do," he said, which is to provide next of kin the cause and manner of death and to treat each person with value.

Paul Parker has a book signing at the Escondido Barnes & Noble scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday, July 20. Learn more here.

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