and good evening.

Thank you so much for watching.

LIFE Ahead.

I'm your host Mark Evans and of course this program is a weekly program and we discuss vital subjects and topics and it's for any adult of any age.

So we thank you for watching tonight and a very important topic tonight something that people don't like to talk about or think about.

But it's very important that you at least know how to navigate around this particular situation if it does happen to you and we're talking about when someone passes what to know and do and we do have a couple of great expert guests on hand.

>> We have Janelle Sprinkel who is an attorney and Janelle, you've been on the program before, haven't you the first time with you Mark?

>> Yes, I'm excited to be here.

Thank you for having me.

Well, thank you for being here and for the first time and I'm honored to meet Rebecca or Becky Mays who is the senior investigator deputy coroner of the Allen County Coroner's Office.

>> Great to have you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for being here as well.

And we're going to go ahead and just get started.

But I want to before we do that, I want to let our viewers know that we have ways for them to communicate with us and they're of course the telephone calls.

You can make a call and you can, you know, stay with us and ask the question on the air live or we now have texting which is a great attribute to the show and when you text and you'll see the two different numbers for calls and texting but when you text please give us at least your first name and the town from where you're calling because we'd love to do a nice shout out to you because we appreciate your viewership and your support.

>> So let's start with you, Becky.

Let's just start at the very beginning.

What happens when a death occurs in a home and who needs to be notified?

>> OK, usually when a death occurs at a home there's either you'll have a hospice situation or you may not you may just have your loved one who passes at home of natural causes or you might have a traumatic event.

The person that needs to be notified first is 911 one you need to call 911 one because unfortunately we do have some people who call funeral homes directly and say hey, my husband has died.

Can you please come pick up my husband?

Unfortunately there has to be somebody there to legally pronounce them dead .

So we encourage you to call 911 one usually what will happen is a police or paramedic or both will show up at the scene.

Don't be alarmed if the police show up at the scene because that is just protocol that something that has to be done and they do that to make sure that there is nothing there is no foul play.

There is nothing that you or somebody can hide or you know, it's it is what it's supposed to be.

>> You know that it is.

So that's what we encourage you to do is to call 911 and then the police and the paramedics will show up if there's no trauma, no foul play, nothing of that nature, it's an obvious natural death then the paramedic or the police department will contact the decedents whether it be their specialties, their oncologist, their primary care physician and see if they'd be willing to sign that death certificate.

>> OK, and so what is the coroner's office role and home or even nursing home hospital or hospice?

>> Well, we're contacted because legally a decedent's physician, a regular physician of any kind, whether it be in a hospital, whether it be in a private private practice session, they can only sign natural deaths.

>> The coroner's office handles all of their deaths.

There's five manor's of death.

There's accident, homicide, suicide, natural and undetermined.

OK, dissidents physicians can only sign natural death if it's anything other than a natural death.

It has to be the coroner's office has to be notified and we sign those death certificates.

So that is our role and what happens is the police or the paramedics they'll call us if let's say the deceased had a fracture or let's say they've had some kind of traumatic event or things like that, they will call our office and run the scenario past us and let us know what's happening.

We will deem or even sometimes we'll wait and review further medical records to determine if it needs to be a coroner's case or not.

>> I see and you of course deal with next of kin.

I'm sure a lot.

>> So who is considered next of kin?

Well, in the state of Indiana the number one next of kin would be the spouse but it has to be legally married.

We don't recognize common law in the state of Indiana.

>> So whether it be you know, male, male, female, female, male, female, it's the spouse that is your number one.

If they are not married then it's going to go to the adult children but it has to be an adult child that is over the age of 18.

It can be if they have an eleven year old even a sixteen seventeen year old cannot be legal next of kin.

It has to be an adult child over the age of 18 and it can't be a stepchild or anything like that has to be a biological child or an adopted child if you've been adopted by that family then you are legal next of kin.

>> OK, and with that what rights does a next of kin have for after death arrangements after death arrangements?

>> Well, it's going to be unless that individual has pre arrangements decided then it's going to be the legal next of kin that we're going to contact and ask, you know, hey, do you have a funeral home choice that you like your loved one to go to because sometimes death at home they may they may be a coroner's case where we're just signing the death certificate but no autopsy needs to be performed or we don't need any further investigation and so we prefer that individual or that our decedent to go directly where the family would like them to go to.

And so we would ask them if they have a funeral home choice because if they do not then the decedent will go to our facility to our morgue until the family can decide of that.

>> OK, very good.

>> Well, to switch it over to Janelle for several questions here, what does an attorney do in this particular situation?

>> We don't have anything to do with the immediate death.

We kind of jump on board and our and our contacted normally some people do call us right away because they're nervous or panic.

They don't know what to do.

They don't know when they need to call an attorney.

But really it's not until after the funeral when they've had a moment to breathe and spend time grieving with their family.

We are contacted to process the estate meaning they have assets that they want to get to their loved ones either through a will or if they don't have a will it will pass through to the heirs under Indiana law.

But the attorney is in charge of helping administrate that process, not the actual death process.

OK, so there's a power of attorney have anything to do with you after death?

No, and actually a lot people are surprised by that.

A power of attorney is something we refer to as a lifetime document.

It is authorizing someone while you're living to be able to help you carry out task or financial decisions, that type of thing.

But a financial power of attorney and a health care power of attorney which is authorizing someone to help you make medical decisions.

Those are both while you're living.

So the moment you pass away those powers stop.

There is a part in the health care power of attorney.

Not all of the documents have this in it but I know we put them at ours that has a provision for after death that allows someone to make funeral arrangements so we make sure we have something like that in that for the exact reason Becky was talking about that it's very difficult for the funeral home at the coroner's office to locate and find a name and figure out who is the next of kin.

So having that legal document with that in there really helps kind of make the process smoother right now.

>> If I were next of kin, would I be able to go in and start transferring the deceased assets myself?

>> No, not at all.

And that's one of the reasons you do need to contact an attorney because just like when you have a bank account during your life , no one else can have access to that account.

The bank is not going to let your next of kin come in and take your money while you're living.

Well, they're not going to let your next of kin come in and take the money after you pass.

Either those assets if they're in the decedent's sole name are locked down so that bank or that company, they need permission to be able to release it.

That permission either comes through going through a probate estate or through another legal type document.

But you need an attorney to kind of shepherd you into being able to have access to those documents or to those assets.

>> Very interesting.

>> Now as next of kin, how soon should I contact an attorney after the death again, it's up to you.

>> We have a lot of people who are who want to talk to an attorney right away just to have explained what's going to happen next.

But honestly, there are no deadlines.

There's no urgency on our end or there's no laws that say you need to contact your attorney immediately.

So when someone does call our our office right after someone has passed we say you know what, it's OK.

You're OK.

You're not going you're not going to break any laws if you go take care of your loved one, take care of the family, have the funeral and then after that after things have calmed down, then contact your attorney so there is no rush as far as when you need to call now when you say contact your attorney no, let me talk about the deceased.

>> If they didn't have an attorney what I need one you you definitely want to talk to an attorney.

It doesn't matter if it's your attorney, the Seaton's attorney, a brand new attorney, but someone's going to need to kind of walk you through how the process works and how you can unlock some of that the some of those assets it say they own a home.

You don't have the authority to sell that home until you have the permission from a court or from a small estate affidavit.

You don't have the ability to go get the assets.

You really are kind of locked out of everything until you talk to an attorney.

>> It doesn't have to be any attorney specifically tied to someone.

OK, so it's good to have that legal advice and help navigate you through the way.

>> Exactly.

Yes.

All right.

And what information would I need to bring when I meet with the attorney?

>> Well, you want to bring if you do have any of their legal documents such as an original will or a trust if they've done an estate plan and you have a copy with you, you definitely want to bring that with you.

Maybe you're going to see the attorney who has all those legal documents anyway you want to bring.

Usually the attorney will send out a questionnaire that says well how can we contact you and who are the heirs and what is their contact information?

>> So you want to bring that completed with you.

You want to bring your I.D.

If you're going to go through probate, we need to have a front and back of your ID.

We need the death certificate, anything like that, any deeds for real estate, anything that has to do with our assets.

You want to bring all of those things with you.

>> You don't have to have all those things.

People show up all the time not having those things.

But the more you have with you, the further we can get as far as processing.

Sure.

The estate that makes sense that switch over to Becky here for a second and talk about information to provide what should you have ready for the paramedics?

The police or even the coroner's office?

>> Well, the number one thing especially if your loved one is a DNR or do not resuscitate, OK?

We suggest that you have them placed randomly throughout the house in places where people are going to see them such as a bedroom door, refrigerator, living room where medics and police and everybody can see them right away.

OK, also we're going to need to know any medications that your loved one might have been on because on those medication bottles is usually going to have their family doctor whoever's prescribing those medications that makes it easier for us to contact so we know who to contact and call which which is there whether it's their cardiologist, whether it's their nephrologist, whether it's their primary care physician also in basically if you have those funeral arrangements in you know or if you have if let's say it's your roommate or somebody like that who's passed that you know you've been friends for years and you live together your sisters and I think who would be the legal next of kin their contact information for us to be able to get a hold of them.

>> Now earlier at the top of the show we talked about several different types of death.

But what constitute a cut program?

What constitutes a coroner's case, anything that is not considered a natural death?

>> A lot of people are surprised like what accidental deaths can be and what they are.

A lot of people think an accident or it has to be a motor vehicle crash or you have to fall in or you know, falling off a building or some something that dramatic and it really doesn't even have to be that it can be an elderly individual who falls and fractures the hip and they just cannot get back to their normal.

They start failing.

They start declining health rapidly afterwards and we consider that an accidental death and it's considered based on the cascade of events.

You know what that individual even though they might have the diagnosis of hypertension or COPD or be on hospice situations even with cancer, you know, just because you're on a hospice situation doesn't necessarily mean that you're on death's door that that's that's what's going to happen.

So they just can't get back to their baseline.

They never become ambulatory again.

They're never able to walk again or function the way that they used to do in their health rapidly declines afterwards.

Then we are notified and more that can be an accidental death such as a drug overdose can be an accidental death.

Things of that nature obviously homicides, suicides are all coroners deaths.

But then we even signed some natural deaths and sometimes we have people and individuals that they may have died of natural causes but they haven't seen their primary care physician or they haven't seen a doctor in ten or twenty years .

I don't know what they might have and obviously there's no physician to contact.

So those are the cases that we end up taking and doing autopsies and things of that nature and try to do further research to find out more medical history.

>> OK, and earlier we talked about the power of attorney rights and those and at the time of death.

>> Yes, but Becky, who has the rights to the coroner's records only the legal next of kin.

OK, the legal next of kin has those rights and that's where we sometimes come into some issues because families do not understand that they're like well my brother died and I'd like this information.

Well, if they're married, the spouse is considered the legal next of kin and that's the only person that we can release the coroner's records to.

There is one record that is releasable to anybody and that is the coroner's verdict page that is the only public record that the coroner's office releases.

>> OK, all right.

Well, we do have a text that just came in and it's from Ted in Columbia City.

We love our Columbia City folks.

He says I'm from Columbia City and I'm interested in cases where assets already have designated beneficiaries.

How is that impacted?

>> And in Indiana and well the let's say a brokerage automatically distributed according to that document.

>> Yeah.

Would you like to answer?

That's right.

And my my area so that's OK.

That's a great question said the beneficiaries actually are who get the asset.

So we have a lot of times what is the will going to direct it is is the beneficiary going to act it direct at any asset that has a beneficiary on it?

So whether it's a brokerage account or whether it's an IRA or a four one K or a life insurance policy, those assets are going to go to the beneficiary so that beneficiary trumps what is said in the will.

>> OK, now power of attorney again.

Another question coming up.

Even though their duties pretty much have ended at the time of death, it's still possible for a power of attorney to actually have to pay bills for the funeral or any other bills that might be lingering.

>> That's a great question.

We get that one a lot because there's a lot of panic around how am I going to pay for the funeral because a funeral bill has to be paid right away.

>> Yes, they want the money immediately exactly as they as they should and the way we talked about earlier, all the assets are locked down so so what do I do?

And that's one of the things that we try to stress on the front end before someone passes.

It's a great idea to have your funeral prepaid sometimes we have a life insurance policy that is directed to the funeral to pay for that sometimes if we don't have either of those we put money aside in a bank account that we put a child on or someone who is responsible for paying the funeral assets.

We make them a joint owner on that account.

OK, so when someone passes still their account it's not been frozen.

So there are several ways to provide and make sure there's money for that.

But in the event that your loved one has passed and didn't know or didn't take that didn't have those those plans in place then typically it comes down to a family member is going to have to pay out of their pocket and then they can seek reimbursement through the estate.

But you know, it's one of those things that we really would like to to preplan for so that you don't find yourself in that situation is getting ready to ask you how do I pay for the funeral if the bank accounts are locked?

>> So you just pretty much yeah.

Yeah.

So who can make the funeral arrangements if the power of attorney no longer works it's going to be next of kin definitely it is.

>> Sometimes we we we put in our documents and sometimes the health care power of appointment or the advance directive will have language in there that survives that on purpose and said that my name individual can has the authority to make my funeral arrangements.

But in absence of having one of those then it would fall to the next of kin.

>> OK, we mentioned death certificates earlier and I want to get into that with Becky here.

What role does a death certificate play and who signs off on those to make them valid?

Well, the certificate is very important and a lot of people do not realize is with they get calls and they say well I need you to I need that death certificate right away because I need to do that for to get into my bank account.

Death certificates initiated the funeral homes.

So which is why it's important we ask family to either try to preplan or have prearrangements or know where they'd like to go.

Sometimes families use a funeral home that they've used for years in the family.

>> They use the same funeral home I was dead for over you know, for everybody.

Yeah, exactly.

Erasing generations.

Exactly.

And so we ask them they don't realize they think that all of a sudden we just produced this death certificate.

It happens.

No, that's why it's important to have a funeral home or be thinking about that, especially if your loved one is in that kind of situation.

They've gone on hospice or they've done something you know, their health is really rapidly declining.

>> We'd like to try to have you get things in order because that's where it initially starts out is going to be a funeral home.

>> And so your death certificate, even if they you don't have a funeral home free arrangement, then they come to our morgue.

Well, they will stay there until you decide on a funeral home choice and so then that period of time no death certificate is being issued until the initiation of the funeral and we if they're coroner's cases we sign off on the death certificates if it's a natural death at home where the coroner's office is in involved, it's going to be there either their primary care physician or their oncologist or their hospice doctor or even the hospitalist in the hospital who's going to sign that death certificate and it seems to me more than likely if a like their physician signs off on it, they're probably going to get that death certificate a little faster than if it has to be a coroner's not necessarily OK.

>> I thought maybe not not necessarily because physicians have legally they have a set amount of time when once they receive that death certificate and it goes by at least five businesses five to seven business days so weekends don't count things of that nature.

>> And a lot of the times like if you take a week to decide on a funeral home, well then you already have a week passed and then we decide who is signing that certificate and then by the time the funeral home gets it and sends it, it's all electronic now back when I first started it wasn't it was us mail.

>> It was and I had a typewriter I used to do that by typewriter.

>> Some of you younger people don't understand what a typewriter is but yeah.

So it can be it can be sometimes a week or two and especially if that physician is on vacation I would assume I have a lot of families would like to get these DCE.

>> I think they'd like to get home and as quickly as possible and for us if we do an autopsy usually we don't get autopsy results.

It can be anywhere from six weeks.

It can go all the way up to twelve weeks sometimes depending on the information and the extra testing and things like that.

>> We have to do an autopsy.

We can issue what's called a pending death certificate and what that is is proof of death ,OK, it'll just stay pending investigation and won't have a cause or manner on it but it works for let's say the Bureau of Motor Vehicles or the banks or Social Security.

It will work for that did some some license but life insurance claims a lot of them sometimes will not accept it.

That's interesting because they want to have that cause and manner of death on their first year to make sure it's not a homicide of some kind where the beneficiary who might have been the perpetrator or an accidental death policy is different if you have an accidental death policy, sometimes they pay differently than a natural.

True, true.

>> I love that.

Well, we have another tax coming in from Joe of North of Manchester and we'll take a look at your question.

>> Can a person request no autopsy?

They can.

But unfortunately if it is deemed a coroner's case and we deem it necessary to do an autopsy that that isn't going to get overruled if we deem it necessary to have an autopsy done, that autopsy is going to be performed now we have a lot of the times now with genealogy and everything a lot of people would like autopsies even though there natural deaths at home and they've got numerous amounts of medical history and we'll tell them we won't perform that autopsy because it does not meet our criteria to do an autopsy.

But we are more than welcome to refer them and give them numbers they can have a private autopsy done.

>> All right.

I want to switch over to Janelle now if there's a will, there's a way we'll see what if I can't find a will?

>> Yeah, well, we have every once in a while that happens so a lot of times we keep the original well we the law firm and a lot of lawyers do that because if you have a will and we can't find original the court will only take an original.

So we want to make sure we preserve that we only have a copy.

We cannot find the original.

There are some ways to work around that.

But if and if no deal can be found it's as if you didn't have one.

>> So it's it's important to make sure you keep that in a place where you can find it OK and so to divvy up all the property and the money and the property and so forth, who's responsible for getting that inheritance to the right people?

>> That would be the personal representative it used to be called the executor a different name, same role.

So when you exercise your right to have a will you say where you want your assets to go and you say who do you want to carry out those wishes?

That's the personal representative is the title of that and they're the ones that are tasked with following all the terms of the will and getting the assets to the people that are listed in there.

>> So there's a will avoid probate.

>> It doesn't and that's another misconception a lot of people think that it does.

Most wills will go through probate.

Well, in Indiana the probate requirement right now is if there are more than one hundred thousand dollars in assets in the decedent name.

So typically if you're a homeowner that's going to get you over that threshold right away.

But you can also just be all of your bank accounts and your car and everything kind of added together if you're over that hundred thousand dollars regardless of whether you have a will or not, we have to go through probate.

>> What if the deceased has debt and I am next of kin?

Am I liable who I get that question a lot too.

That's another another good one and I like to calm people down so the estate is liable to pay all the debt up to the amount of assets that are in that estate.

So as a personal representative you're liable if you distribute it out to the heirs, don't use it to pay the debt first but that's different.

You're not personally liable to pay the debt with your finances.

You're just required to use the decedent assets to pay off all of debt before it can be distributed out and sometimes you know there's not enough to distribute anything out.

The debt takes care of all of it or sometimes we have more debt than we have the ability to pay and then there's a priority list of who gets paid first.

>> As you can imagine, it's usually the IRS they get their taxes.

I think we have just enough time for one more text here and it's from Richard of Huntington and he is asking what if I pass and I have no living relatives?

>> Well, I can I guess I can sure.

On our end we do the best that we can to try to find the next to kin.

OK, if you have no living relatives there, we will go back as far as distant cousins and things of that nature to try to find a legal next of kin.

If we don't then and we don't have anybody who's willing to step up and and you have no prearrangements or you have nothing organized in that form then you come we'll put an ad in the paper.

We'll do all of that to try to find and even if it's a distant relative or anything like that, we will declare you an abandoned body.

Unfortunately and we do have you cremated and we keep your ashes remains OK.

And I want to ask the last question to you what are some of the steps to help prepare your family in the event of a possible future death?

>> I honestly have open conversations.

Please have open conversations.

There's a lot of people who have the misnomer that if you talk about death it makes it seem to happen sooner to me it's there's so many when I started this career I didn't know about death as much as I have and the more that I deal with the public and go to homes and do things no matter how much even if you're on hospice, people still aren't prepared to have that conversation through prepare as much as you can be open and honest with your family about your your wants, your wishes and if you don't have anybody go and have do some pre arrangements for yourself if if you don't if you might have next of kin if you don't like your next of kin or you don't get along with them, you don't want them to have anything to do with it, then go have those prearrangements.

>> Communication is the key attorney general Sprinkel and senior investigator deputy coroner of Allen County Rebecca Mayes, Becky Mayes, thank you so much.

It was a great show.

Thank you for your time and we'll have you back again.

Yes.

And until next time you can see our show on YouTube and also our website at PBSC Fort Wayne Dog.

Thank you so much.

We hope you embrace your LIFE Ahead.

Good night