The Cobb County Medical Examiner’s office has moved into a new $11 million building that’s a dramatic expansion of a 42-year-old facility that had been long outdated.
The new place is 19,000 square feet on County Services Parkway, among a cluster of Cobb government facilities.
Some of the funding came from the 2016 Cobb government SPLOST, but in 2018 Cobb commissioners voted to provide the lion’s share of the money––$8 million in general fund reserves––for what Medical Examiner Dr. Christopher Gulledge said would be needed to serve a county of more than 750,000 people.
In 2014 a critical audit of the medical examiner’s office suggested sweeping changes that prompted the resignation of the chief medical examiner. The audit was brought about by complaints by citizen Tom Cheek about the way his son’s autopsy was handled, and revealed wider organizational problems.
“The original Medical Examiner’s office was built in 1978 when Cobb County only had 200,000 people, and it has not significantly been expanded since then,” said Gulledge, who was appointed in 2015.
His office helps investigates criminal cases and works with law enforcement and the judicial system, but is an independent agency of county government.
Gulledge also has been ramping up efforts to grapple with the county’s growing opioid crisis.
The Medical Examiner’s office also is providing real-time data to the Cobb and Douglas Public Health Department related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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