Union County broke ground Thursday, Oct. 15, on a regional autopsy center that Sheriff Eddie Cathey says will cut months-long waits for autopsy results across nine counties.
The facility will serve Union, Montgomery, Stanly, Cabarrus, Anson, Gaston, Moore, Richmond and Rowan counties, Spectrum News 1 first reported. Construction is expected to wrap up in fall 2027. The Union County Sheriff's Office, which provides law enforcement for Weddington, Marvin and Wesley Chapel, will use the center for death investigations in those communities.
Cathey said the county's medical examiner previously had to send bodies to the state medical examiner's office in Raleigh for autopsies. The backlog was severe. Results took seven to eight months to come back, he said.
"What we were dealing with was months and months of waiting on Raleigh to give us autopsy," Cathey said. "Now, we don't have to do that. We'll have our own center."
County leaders worked with the North Carolina General Assembly to secure more than $20 million in 2023 to build the center. A Union County Chamber of Commerce summary from August 2024 described the state commitment as $20 million for construction plus $2 million annually for operations. The Charlotte Observer reported in December 2024 that the General Assembly had given Union County $22 million since its 2023 session.
The permanent center will include examination areas, X-ray rooms and evidence storage, according to Spectrum News 1.
A temporary autopsy center opened in the bottom of a Monroe hospital on Dec. 17, 2024, the Charlotte Observer reported. That temporary facility was the ninth regional center in the state.
The delays had direct consequences for criminal cases. Chief Deputy Tony Underwood of the Union County Sheriff's Office told Spectrum News 1 in April 2025 that the office had to begin sending cases to the state medical examiner in Wake County in 2022 after previously using Mecklenburg County's facility. Underwood said toxicology work in drug overdose cases could take "months and months, if not even a year or longer."
Union County has been among the top counties pursuing "death by distribution" charges against drug dealers under a 2019 state law, according to research by the Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina as reported by the Charlotte Observer. Those prosecutions depend on autopsy and toxicology results to establish probable cause.
Barb Walsh, founder and executive director of Fentanyl Victims Network of North Carolina, told Spectrum News 1 in April 2025 that she waited five months for toxicology results after her daughter, Sophia, died from fentanyl poisoning in 2021. Walsh told the Charlotte Observer in December 2024 that she regularly hears from families waiting 10 to 12 months.
Residents with information about drug activity in the Waxhaws area can contact the Union County Sheriff's Office at 704-283-3789.
