County Coroner Copes with Loss of Son
Part Two
By Luke Schmaltz, VOICES Newsletter Editor
For the last 28 years, Alfie McGinty has been working in the Marion County, IN Coroner’s Office – serving 18 of those years as Chief Deputy Coroner. In January 2025, she took over as Coroner of Indianapolis, a position she was elected to the preceding November.
In Part One of this story, McGinty shares the many challenges of her work – especially after the loss of her son, Jimmy, in 2021 to substance-related causes. Here, McGinty delves deeper into the challenges of working around death, the enduring stigma around substance-related death, and the slowly improving landscape of the opioid crisis.
A Lifelong Calling
“It feels like I have been doing death investigations since I was five years old,” McGinty says. “I found my mother unresponsive and I had to call 911 and get an ambulance, although she was already deceased. She was 25 and died of a sudden, unexpected heart attack – so I have been dealing with grief from a very young age.”
“I was placed in this office unknowingly when I was first hired. I thought I was going to work for a different administration office through a temp service and I somehow landed here – at the Coroner’s Office. These experiences have given me a different perspective, and it seems as though I was serendipitously placed here to do this work. It is a passion that I love, even during the hardest times during the darkest days.”
“Being around death all of the time is very hard – emotionally, mentally, and physically,” McGinty continues, “But somehow, I have been given the strength to keep going and to keep doing this work after 28 years.”
Self-Tailored Support
In addition to monthly peer grief support meetings, McGinty eventually sought supplemental support. “I noticed that when I first started going, I felt a lot of relief, but then it would build back up, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I am a self-proclaimed workaholic, and I would just dive into work because it is very demanding and I didn’t have to think about my feelings. So, I was working but not sleeping and there were a lot of things that were happening to me physically that indicated I needed more help.”
“I sought a personal grief therapist, which I didn’t like. It wasn’t a good match. So, I found another therapist, which was an OK match, but it still didn’t land or connect with me. But I kept going to the peer grief support group and that got me over the edge to a place where I was able to get through the ordeal. It was a lot.”
Stigma and Community
“We are very unique, as grievers of these types of death, because there is so much stigma around it,” McGinty explains. “Saying that my son died in a motorcycle accident is a very different story than saying that my son died from a drug overdose. The stigma is so prevalent, that for a while, I didn’t tell anybody how Jimmy died. I felt like, as a prominent publicly appointed official whose son was impacted by this crisis, people would be saying, ‘What kind of a mother are you?” What kind of a parent are you?’”
“I was very protected by my community,” McGinty says. “Those that knew were in solidarity in that they were not going to tell anyone how Jimmy died. Ultimately, I had to deal with being silent about Jimmy along with coping with the grief. There was so much surrounding the event and the subsequent circumstances because of my job and where I work.”
“Stigma around substance-related death has gotten better because so many more people have been impacted by it,” McGinty explains. “One way or another, you have to take a different stance on it because of how widely the effect has spread. The awareness of what substance use is, looking at it as a disease rather than some alien issue has also helped. The funding toward education has helped as well.”
“When I educate people on this issue, I always emphasize that we need to have more conversations about substance use. To prevent it and the subsequent deaths, we have to talk about the issues at hand. We have to start early, it is not easy, but we can’t be afraid to talk about it. The number of organizations that now have information available are helping reduce stigma as well.”
Effective Conversations
Like many who seek grief support, McGinty shares how making it to her first grief support meeting was profoundly difficult. “Although I knew the families there were dealing with the same type of loss as me, I was dealing with a lot of self-perceived stigma because of my profession, which was a challenge. But they welcomed me with open arms and no judgement, which was so important. They didn’t care who I was professionally, I didn’t have to say who I was, all I had to do was express my grief. They welcomed me to open up about my grief with no knowledge of or concern about my job title or my place of employment. Opening up at that first meeting was so needed.”
“We are seeing a decrease in overdose deaths because so many families are talking about substance use. The issues are being discussed on bigger stages. Just a couple of years ago, Justin Phillips from Overdose Lifeline was invited to the White House for a discussion with the Second Gentleman (the Vice President’s husband) Doug Emhoff. He held a summit for families who have lost loved ones to substance use.
“Also, there is a significant amount of naloxone that is available and distributed in our community and lots of activity around awareness and education. We see a lot more meeting people where they are in terms of the availability of medication-assisted treatment. Also, state-level funds were made available to inpatient treatment facilities.”
“These programs have been made available to people who do not have insurance. That’s one of the things that drove me crazy while I was on the journey with my son, Jimmy.”
Unsupported Struggle
“He went to three places that were all outside of the city. He had to travel an hour away for inpatient treatment because there were no facilities in the city that would accept someone without insurance. By this time, he was an adult and was off my insurance. But even when he was covered, they wanted $5,000 just for placement. It was so ridiculous early on around 2018 and 2019. No wonder people were dying – there was nowhere for them to go to get help.”
“Now, on the other hand, there are so many places advertising that they will take you in for inpatient treatment and recovery. It is bittersweet because it wasn’t available for Jimmy back then, but now it is available for others.”
“I still talk to two of Jimmy's friends who call me from time to time. They were dealing with their own substance use issues. They call me and say, ‘Hey Ms. Alfie. I know you know where the resources are. I’ve got a friend who is ready to go to treatment.’ Or they will say something like, ‘I’ve got someone who is getting out of inpatient treatment and needs transitional housing.’”
“At least this is evidence that the opioid settlement funds are going to support people in their treatment and their recovery.”
Creating Community
“As I was losing Jimmy, I was also seeing more deaths in the African American community. I had friends who were losing their children as well. After going to a couple of different grief support groups, what we found was there was nowhere for people to go who looked like us. I attended a peer grief support training with Overdose Lifeline and Peer Support Community Partners (PSCP). I noticed that I was the only African American in that training. I asked, ‘Where do others who have my cultural experience go for support?’ Because in the African American community, you don’t talk about drugs and overdoses because [we think] that doesn’t happen to us. That happens to other people.”
“I explained to Laura Vargas and Glen Lord of PSCP that I needed to connect with people in my community. I needed us to support each other and to make it known that it is OK to grieve. I needed to help people in my community learn to understand grief and how to get the support they needed while dealing with loss because I didn’t have anybody to talk to.”
“So, I started talking to my friends – all of whom had lost loved ones to overdose. We had our own gathering and there were four of us who had lost loved ones to overdose. They hadn’t told anybody how their children died and I had barely told anybody. I knew there were more of us who were dealing with this. I told Laura and Glen that I needed their help to bring other people into the peer grief support training so that we could support each other.”
“I am proud to say that, over the past couple of years, we have had two peer grief support training sessions with PSCP and we have trained nearly 25 people in facilitating peer grief support so we can help and support people in our community.”
“It has been amazing,” McGinty says. “Our grief support group facilitators have hit the ground running by holding their own groups and grief spaces. One lady is a yoga instructor and holds grief spaces through that practice. Another lady works with kids and is holding space for their loss. Another is a comedian and she holds grief spaces through comedy. I am not the leader of all these efforts. I am the connector.”