By Sam Boykin
GASTONIA — Mark Fagala was just 17 when he got into the business of death.
As a volunteer for the Gaston County fire and rescue squad, the local coroner asked Fagala to drive down to Hilton Head to pick up a body. Fagala went to the coast on a Saturday morning to load the body on a stretcher and into the back of a station wagon. Driving back to Gastonia, the reality of what he was doing started to sink in.
“For the first hour, I was just praying to Jesus, ‘Get me home,’” he said. “The stretcher was rolling back and forth; I was scared to death and swore I’d never do this again. But after another hour went by, I found a good radio station and forgot the body was back there. I was like, this ain’t nothing, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Today, Fagala, 38, is president of Fagala Mortuary and Biohazard Specialists, LLC, a company in the dirty business of cleaning up crime scenes and decontaminating homes and businesses after suicides and accidents. Fagala is the guy that shows up after the news crews and police leave; he helps family members and property owners handle an unsavory but necessary task.
“Most folks think that the police will clean up after a shooting or suicide,” Fagala said. “They’re shocked to learn it’s the property owner’s responsibility.”
It’s a niche business that’s increasingly competitive. Ten such companies are listed on the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department’s Victim and Family Resource Guide. Fagala expects more entrepreneurs to enter the market as job opportunities dwindle in the economic downtown. Fagala said that over the last year or so, he’s observed a noticeable increase in the number of suicides.“More people are having money problems, they start drinking, get depressed, and think this is the only way out,” he said.
According to the N.C. Division of Public Health, the number of suicides statewide rose from 1,021 in 2004 to 1,160 in 2008. Mecklenburg County suicides decreased slightly, from 79 in 2004 to 71 in 2008.
Kathleen Jones-Vessey, interim director of the State Center for Health Statistics and manager of the Statistical Services Unit, said that while the number of suicides has increased, so has the population, which means more deaths of all kinds. Good news for folks looking to get into biohazard cleanup.
The field is unregulated and doesn’t require certification or training. The result, according to Fagala, is a number of what he calls “Johnny Scoop Shovel Services.” Fagala prides himself on being one of the state’s few crime scene specialists certified by the American Bio-Recovery Association, a nonprofit organization that promotes education and ethical standards.
Steve Alsop, on the other hand, discounts the importance of certifications, saying many certifying agencies are fly-by-night money-making enterprises. Fagala questions his comment by saying what are his credentials. Fagala is not only on the national registry with ABRA, but went in length in showing me all of his certifications. Fagala has received public, media and personal recognition and awards from agencies throughout the Carolinas.
Alsop is president of Charlotte’s Reo-Clean, which cleans up crime scenes and provides other biohazard services. For most of his career, Alsop worked as a police officer for Charlotte Douglas International Airport in the explosive ordinance canine detection unit. He started Reo-Clean in 1997 as a side business, turning it into a full-time enterprise after retiring from police work in 2004.
Over the years, Alsop has cleaned some truly grisly scenes, including a case in Charleston where five people, including young children, were murdered.
“Of course, it’s tough to deal with that kind of situation,” he said. “But you can't get involved in the why, how, who of it. Many times I don't know if the victims were black, white, old or young. I don't care. It’s my job to clean out everything that says crime scene.”
Some of the worst cases, he said, involve a natural death that goes unreported.
“The body decomposes pretty quickly,” he said. “And the stench is so bad it permeates everything. It’s even been known to penetrate steel. It takes a lot of cleaning and scrubbing to get that out. Sometimes I even have to cut out plywood sub flooring and floor joists.”
Fagala, too, has seen it all, from a man decapitated in an industrial accident to gruesome homicides. He cleaned up after a 2003 quadruple murder in Belmont in which a man killed three women and a man with a 9 mm handgun. He also specializes in chemical spills, drug labs and homes that have been trashed or filled with refuse.
The roots of his business took hold in 1990, when Fagala and his father bought a mortuary company and began transporting bodies for the State Medical Examiner’s Office. Fagala often encountered grieving, overwhelmed family members and property owners who had a rude awakening when they learned the police didn’t clean up after traumatic deaths.
Seeing a promising business niche, Fagala expanded his services in 2001 to include cleaning up suicides, homicides and industrial accidents. The 2003 quadruple homicide in Belmont was his first big case, and it helped get his name out. He developed relationships with police and medical Examiners, Funeral Directors, Victim Advocate's as well as other non-profit associations such as Children of Hoarders, NOVA-National Organization for Victims Assistance and Helpinghoarders.com who has referred him to people needing his services.
Fagala’s tools of the trade include two bio-recovery vehicles equipped with full-body biohazard suits, respirators, and a variety of chemicals and enzymes as well as the state of the art equipment. "We Use Real Bio recovery Vehicles We do not tote a along a trailer full of equipment using the family minivan, truck or SUV. Our state of the art bio recovery trucks are equipped with a spill recovery system to protect the environment, and our service vans are treated with Line-X on the inside for that same eco friendly protection. There are too many rouge companies that use the family minivan, truck or SUV, which creates a danger to their own family, friends and loved ones by cross contamination. Just think…. they use that very same vehicle to bring the groceries home in. All of our vehicles are computerized to expedite all insurance paperwork.
Our Trucks are Professionally Marked We do not use the pull away magnetic signs commonly used on the family minivan, truck or SUV. More than likely if you see a company with magnetic decals on a vehicle, this means that you may be contracting with an individual who is not committed to this line of work full time. They have a full time job elsewhere to where they are hiding their part time hobby from their employer. Fagala Biohazard Specialists is dedicated to your need full time. He runs the business from his home, located in a picturesque suburban neighborhood in Gastonia. It’s an unlikely setting for such a grisly line of work. Fagala and his wife have three children, and his office is cluttered with a crib, baby stroller and toys. Next to an armoire filled with diapers and baby clothes, a table holds EMS and fire rescue pagers that fill the room with chatter and static.
Two full-time employees and about a dozen part-timers from the local fire and rescue squad help out as needed. Over the years, Fagala estimates, he’s cleaned thousands of crime scenes.
“You’ve got small ones that just require a quick cleanup, but some are large scale — like a shotgun to the head — where there’s bone fragments on the ceiling and brain matter splattered everywhere,” he said.
He knows that his line of work may sound gruesome. But every time he enters a crime scene, his mind simply “flips a switch.”
“I go into a different mode,” he said. “If you don't, you'll go crazy.” Fagala also has started another unique service called Bio Protect, LLC. http://www.bioprotectnow.com/ Mark and his good friend Gordy Powell, owner of A 1 Bio Clean out of Atlanta were reacting to calls for MRSA and H1N1 and swine flu for years. They can now not only clean a property for anything that has a potential virus such as MRSA, but can now apply a anti microbial barrier that guarantee's the property for 3 years. For more information on any of Fagala's company's he can be reached @ mark@carolinacrimescenecleanup.com or 877-246-5532.
