Gregory collected what evidence he needed--dental imprints, DNA samples and other materials--then had the body released from the county morgue. The unsolved case of this Jane Doe affected him deeply, Gregory says, though he couldn't make it to her funeral because a newer, more solvable case had grabbed his time and attention.
"I wish there was a better way to end this than a Jane Doe burial in a county graveyard," the detective says later. "I feel real bad about this."
Deacon Herrmann asks Mary Helen Valenzuela and Merry Shutt if they'll say the prayer at one of the funerals. "We're all ministers," he reassures them, gesturing toward prisoner Felix Solis, whom he is aware had prayed aloud for Baby Ramos a few weeks earlier. "You don't have to be ordained to say goodbye to someone."
A funeral-home hearse pulls into Twin Buttes with the body of 52-year-old Cecil Nolan. For years Nolan had looked after a carnival lot in west Phoenix in return for free rent in a mobile home on the property. According to the county medical examiner, he died from liver disease. Divorced years earlier, Nolan apparently left no children.
After determining Nolan had few financial assets, Mary Helen Valenzuela tracked down one of his brothers in South Dakota. The family hadn't seen or heard from Cecil for a long time, the brother told her. Neither he nor anyone else in the family wanted to pay for his funeral.
That's how Nolan's body ended up at the Twin Buttes Cemetery.
The prisoners stop milling and bow their heads in respect as Valenzuela and Shutt approach the teal-blue coffin. The two women look at each other briefly, then begin the Lord's Prayer in unison. A few seconds later they say, "Amen."
Before the day's work is complete, there's the funeral of another deceased infant whose mother deserted her after she died, and whose father deserted the mother long before the birth.
Baby Johnson's little coffin rests atop two plastic Carnation milk crates. Chaplain Joe Leonard lays his right hand on top of the wooden box and opens a tattered book to a "Prayer for Abandoned Children."
"When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up," he says in a stentorian voice that resounds through the cemetery. "Then the Lord will take me up. Amen."
One of the prisoners turns away, wrought, he explains later, with concern about his own young daughter. Merry Shutt starts crying quietly. So does Chaplain Joe himself.
"I can't help myself," he says as the prisoners cover Baby Johnson's coffin with dirt. "You just wonder, for what purpose was she put here."
@pq:The prisoner silently fashions some baling wire into a makeshift crucifix, then sticks it into the mound of fresh dirt. @body:
@pq:"We're here for the living as well as for those who have died."
@body:
@pq:"My congregation dwells among green, green grass in a quiet and thoughtful place. And I've got kids who are absolute angels."
@body:
@pq:The prisoners cover Baby Johnson's coffin with dirt. "You just wonder, for what purpose was she put here.
