American Notes NEW YORK

When the charred remains of two bodies were brought to the Newark-Wayne Community Hospital morgue in upstate New York last February, coroner C. Dupha Reeves identified them as those of a year-old baby and his mother Vickie Lee Evans, 18. Reeves had been told that the two corpses had been recovered from a fire in a trailer home. Without performing autopsies, he issued death certificates. He was wrong. The smaller body was that of a pet rabbit. The mistake was discovered a few weeks ago, when Gary Rotondo, Evans' live-in companion, returned to the burned-out trailer and found the remains of a baby boy, who was later identified as his son.

How could such a mistake occur? Explained Reeves, an 80-year-old retired surgeon who was elected coroner 26 years ago: "There was nothing to autopsy. It was just a charred mass of tissue, which was definitely a body because I could identify intestines and liver. Everything else was gone." He admits he was "depressed" to learn about his error, but is braced for any criticism. "I'll tell you what I'll do if it gets too nasty," Reeves says. "I'll quit."