Bags containing 11 dead bodies at the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office were opened during a break-in, which led to a man being arrested and accused of multiple felonies, including sexually abusing a dead person.
Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan said at a May 21 news conference that his office was alerted at about 1:50 a.m. on May 20 of a break-in at the office, located at Seventh Avenue and Jefferson Street in downtown Phoenix. Deputies found broken glass and saw that an intruder had made their way into the area where bodies were stored.
Once inside, deputies saw 11 bags containing bodies had been broken open, and “some of them were actually touched,” Sheridan said.
Fenris Lu was arrested on suspicion of multiple felonies, including sexual conduct with a dead person, third-degree burglary, escaping custody, criminal damage and possession of burglary tools, according to jail records.
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The Sheriff's Office and Medical Examiner’s Office need to notify the families of the 11 dead people to let them know what happened before they can provide more details on the case, Sheridan said.
On the afternoon of May 21, a Maricopa County Superior Court commissioner conducted part of Lu's initial appearance without Lu present after jail staff said he was combative while being booked into jail. The commissioner said he would conduct the rest of the initial appearance outside Lu's cell, which is at the Lower Buckeye Jail, according to the Sheriff's Office website.
The commissioner at first pushed back on prosecutor Tom Van Dorn's request to seal the initial arrest documents as they didn't identify who the bodies belonged to, but later agreed to seal them when Van Dorn said investigators were still working to determine if any of the bodies were evidence in other investigations.
The commissioner set Lu's bond at $500,000 cash only and scheduled a preliminary hearing for May 27.
