LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Death and taxes are said to be a certainty. But in Arkansas, the experience of the Coroner who might be investigating your loved one’s death is not so certain.

This is because Arkansas has virtually zero qualifications for a person to run and be elected, despite Coroners’ important roles in investigations and determining cause of death for thousands.

Fox 16’s Marci Manley looked in to a system that impacts life insurance policies, closure for families, and even criminal cases…

Faulkner Coroner Patrick Moore works to unlock the secrets to the state of death in Arkansas for the public.

“Most people don’t have a clue what we do,” Moore, who is the President of the Coroner’s Association, said.

With more than 20 years experience, Moore says he wishes the state and local leaders understood how education for Coroners is part of the equation for justice and integrity in death.

“Make decisions that may have effects on criminals, may have effects on insurance payouts… we may be the first ones to identify some sort of public health problem,” Moore said.

All 75 counties in Arkansas have a coroner, and just two of those are appointed positions.

You can run and be elected with zero medical knowledge, anatomical training or any official certification of any kind.

“You have to be 18 years or older. You cannot be a felon. And you’re electable,” Moore said.

There’s no single death investigation system in the U.S.. Some states require certification, while others rely solely on medical examiners or doctors.

“I think there are only four or five other states that don’t require coroners to have some sort of training,” Moore said.

Coroners aren’t the ones conducting autopsies; that responsibility falls to medical examiners at the state crime lab. But coroners do decide if someone receives an autopsy. They collect critical evidence, and getting it wrong can deprive families of closure, or result in justice being lost forever.

“I want my deputies, my qualified, to be able to work alongside of any investigating agency to be able to walk in a crime scene and not mess up a crime scene,” Pulaski County Coroner Gerone Hobbs said.

Cremations in the state have more than tripled to nearly 40 percent since 2000, making accuracty and timeliness more important with every passing year.

“It’s not like an internment, [where] you can bury someone and have a body exhumed [and] can get an autopsy redone. Once the cremation is done, that’s final,” Hobbs said.

Since 2015, the state has offered free death investigation training. But just 20 counties (38 total Coroners and Deputy Coroners) graduated the course.

Even fewer are nationally certified… nine coroners out of 75.

“You’re not going to get no cooperation to take off from your full-time job to go do something that’s kind of free and not required,” Van Buren County Coroner Joe Tsosie said.

Tsosie believes a lack of interest may actually reflect a lack of funding. Most coroners are treated as part-time positions, despite being on-call 24/7. Their maximum and minimum salaries are set by statute, with some paid less than $5,000 a year.

“The more I try to get, the less I get. So it’s kind of like fighting a losing battle,” Tsosie said.

Tsosie operates on a budget of less than $4,000 a year.

He, like many coroners, works full-time in the funeral industry. His transport vehicle and storage for bodies is actually owned by the funeral home because the county doesn’t provide it.

“Your full-time job actually helps supplement your job as the county coroner. That’s correct,” Tsosie said.

Moore says he would like to see education play a prominent role in the field, having set that expectation for himself and his deputies.

In the next legislative session, Moore says he hopes to see a new law to provide pay incentives for coroners who receive training or certification.

Eventually, he thinks federal requirements or state foresight will require it. If not for county coroners, then at least deputies, similat to Sheriffs who can be civilians.

“I think most coroners in the state are going to want to meet the same education that their deputies have,” Moore said.

Coroners across the state deal in an area most of us would rather ignore, and most rarely see at all.

“I’m used to people being like, ‘Oh you work with dead people.’ I do. But it’s the families that keep me going,” Hobbs said.

But death doesn’t sleep. It’s part of all of our lives, and many feel it may be time to shed a light on the dark state of death in Arkansas.