In this Tuesday, May 5, 2020, photo, Cook County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Ponni Arunkumar, puts on personal protective equipment as she prepares to perform four autopsies in as many hours at the ...

Racks have been set up inside a refrigerate container in the morgue’s parking lot so bodies of people believed infected by the highly contagious virus can be examined there.

With Chicago and Cook County being hit hardest by COVID-19, the ABC7 I-Team has learned that the county morgue is preparing for a grim possibility: more bodies than they have room to handle.

Dr. Ponni Arunkumar, chief medical examiner for Cook County, shared in Tuesday’s press conference that while her office is primarily tasked with determining the cause and manner of death for ...

Cavanaugh was fired by the Cook County medical examiner's office in November after an internal review ... Dr. Ponni Arunkumar’s staff so far has reviewed 37 of Dr. John E. Cavanaugh’s ...

Cook County Chief Medical Examiner Ponni Arunkumar has been tasked with identifying boxes filled with bags of ashes, along with bodies which were found at Heights Crematory.

In Cook County, 53% of those who died of opioid overdoses in 2024 were Black, 31% were white and nearly 14% were Latino. The most affected age group was people 50 to 59, with 27% of the deaths.

Police asked Dr. Ponni Arunkumar, Cook County’s Chief Medical Examiner, to review the findings as part of that process. Part One: Questions surround the 1996 death of a suburban mother .

CHICAGO — The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office (MEO) is hosting its fourth annual “Missing Persons Day.” The event will be held on April 20 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the MEO, located ...

Half of Cook County’s confirmed opioid-related deaths have been among Black residents, even though they make up less than a quarter of the county’s population. Officials warn that the COVID-19 ...