With the changing of the seasons from summer to autumn brings in cooler weather, shorter days, and heralds in the spooky season. This season brings harvests, pumpkins, spectacular eye-catching displays, and eerie paranormal searches for the source of morbid curiosities. Searching for a sense of hair-raising sites and information of the departed, where might one find a source for such accounts and records for the basis of where such eerie tales begin?

Depending on the local government they may or may not have ghosts that haunt their buildings or slam file cabinet drawers in the night. Some local governments do maintain their records based on their functions that can be categorized from eerie to chilling.

In scouring through the local schedules for records series that pique the imagination and interest for all things spooky, several series fit the bill. The series of interest come from two different schedules: Schedule PS: Records of Public Safety Agencies and Schedule PW: Records of Public Works and other Government Services.

Schedule PS has several record series for creepy records. Part 3: Records of Court Medical Examiners, Section 3-1: Death Investigation Records involves records for the inquiry and examination of a deceased person.

PS4375-02a

INQUEST CASE FILES

Investigative reports by medical examiner, pathologists, or investigators; autopsy reports; toxicology, histology, and similar laboratory reports supportive of an autopsy or used as the basis for determining a cause of death; any affidavits taken during investigation; and copies of death certificates.

PERMANENT.

Retention Note:  Copies of death certificates need to be kept only as long as administratively valuable if the information on the certificate is included in one or more of the other reports listed.

Whether the cause of death is obvious or not, PS4375-02a refers to the collected reports of an autopsy to establish and verify the cause of death in connection to a crime and is filed with either the district attorney, criminal district attorney, or the county attorney as directed in Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, Art. 49.25, Sec. 9. Those reports involve taking samples from the deceased to retrieve as much information as possible to determine the manner of death like a mad scientist in their lab. The medical examiners report of the deceased causes shakes due to the information collected for the investigation.

Another set of records that provides a sense of chills can be dug up in Schedule PW titled Part 16: Cemetery Records. From this section of the schedule there are opening remarks about how these records refer to only public cemeteries owned and operated by a city, county, or any other local government.

PW5675-02

INTERMENT RECORDS

Records showing name and age of deceased (if known), date of interment, and type and location of interment.

PERMANENT.

The record of internment refers to information pertaining to the final resting place of a deceased individual. The details of what the records contain are outlined in the description in Health and Safety Code, Sec. 711.003.

The role of these two records features the various roles and functions that a local government performs for the public’s safety and the maintenance of the public’s final resting place.

What records or record series do you find spooky? Let us know in the comments below!

Happy Halloween!