SHELBY
Mark Fagala has seen more dead people than most.
He has cleaned up things most wouldn't.
At 17, he begged the coroner for a job. And while most teenagers were consumed with getting their driver's license, Fagala was behind yellow tape seeing things most couldn't dream of. "I thought it was cool I could go inside the crime scene tape," said Mark Fagala, now owner of Fagala Biohazard Specialists, LLC.
Fagala's company is a contract agent for the N.C. Medical Examiners Office, where he is currently assigned to Cleveland and Gaston counties. "I begged the coroner for a job at 17 and he put me on part-time," he said. "I picked up bodies for the medical examiners office."
Fagala has been in the industry for over 20 years and, in 2001, moved to cleaning up scenes pertaining to unattended deaths, suicides, homicides and industrial accidents.
"We started the cleanup in response to family members mistakenly thinking the police would clean the scenes," he said. "After being told that they didn't, they had no other options but to clean it themselves. ... We are going to flip that crime scene, by the time we are done the place looks like it was new." Fagala said there are two traumas to every scene - the loss of a loved one and the thought of having to clean it up.
He has seen a lot throughout his years in the business. Most notable are the homes so filled with trash that you can't see the floor.
"They will drink their beverage of choice, then toss it ... five years later you can barely open the front door," he said.
All of Fagala's technicians are trained in evidence recovery. He said he has found bullets from murder scenes that were lodged into subfloors, walls and ceilings.
"Once we find something we stop all operations, call police and have them come out and process the evidence," he said.
Most people couldn't stomach his line of work, but Fagala said it is a mindset.
"It makes me feel good to go and alleviate one of the traumas for the family to deal with."
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