TRUMBULL COUNTY Coroner’s office updates status of several cases

Staff report

WARREN

The Trumbull County Coroner’s Office on Wednesday updated the status of several cases under its jurisdiction and explained the need it has for more space to handle drug-overdose deaths.

The coroner ruled the death of Wallace Bonzer, 58, of Howland to be natural causes, the result of heart disease.

His body was found in his truck in the Eastwood Mall parking lot Saturday afternoon after his family reported him missing.

Bonzer had been experiencing chest pains and was on the way to see a doctor when he stopped to use an ATM machine at a bank at the mall, the coroner’s office said.

The office still is trying to identify the body of the man found in a burned minivan on Pershing Avenue Southwest on Monday morning.

The office is attempting to use dental records to determine whether the body is that of the man who owned the van.

The man, 31, of Parkman Road Northwest, is missing. There also has not been a ruling on whether the death is a homicide.

Meanwhile, the office is using space outside the county morgue in Trumbull Memorial Hospital to store bodies of people for autopsy purposes because of the high number of pending coroner’s cases.

Shelley Mazanetz, a coroner’s investigator, said the office sometimes asks for help from local funeral homes and St. Joseph Warren Hospital.

The extra space has been needed about three times in the past three months. By comparison, the practice was only necessary occasionally a year ago, Mazanetz said.

Drug-overdose deaths are one reason the number of coroner’s cases has increased, she added.