Putnam Seeing Homicide, Suicide Increase Recently

Putnam County has seen a spike in homicides, suicides and overdoses in recent months.

County Coroner Tommy Copeland said additional money to fund autopsies, investigations and death certificates has been requested twice. Copeland said it had been several years since deaths had increased to a level where more funding was required.

“I’m with law enforcement and fire department that does first response, we’ve all noticed this same thing,” Copeland said. “That we’ve had a major uptick in the number of deaths that we’re called to and that we’re investigating.”

Copeland said the cost of an autopsy has increased, he said it costs about $1,900 now to have an autopsy ordered. Copeland said the autopsy cost over the past few years has gone up between $200-$300.

Copeland said that at an EMS level, there have been more calls than before for overdoses that did not result in death.

“In this particular request, I only asked that $3,400 be moved from one line item to the other,” Copeland said. “It did not require any new money from the commission. When I made the request a couple of months ago for autopsies we did ask for $50,000 in new money.”