Source: WSOCTV.com
Attorney Shell Pearce showed Faherty the general statutes set out by the state he says allows for each county to have a coroner. But in 2020, the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to abolish the office of the coroner in the four remaining counties that still had one.
“With the rising number of fatalities, drug overdoses, criminal activity, things like that — it doesn’t make sense that the coroner should not exist,” Pearce said.
A spokesperson for Catawba County said there are currently seven on-call medical examiners in Catawba County. A medical examiner is a physician — often a pathologist — while a coroner is an elected official who may or may not have medical training.
But some say the billboard messaging is misleading since the coroner isn’t on the ballot.
“It’s not right,” Von Abernathy said. “You can’t put stuff up like that, but today’s society, yes they’ll do it.”
Others say “stab ‘em” and “slab ‘em” goes too far.
“A lot of folks ride up and down here with their kids and stuff. What are the kids going to think about it, you know?” Sandra Haynes said.
They say that there is no such thing as bad publicity.