In a grassy lawn at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Renton, scattered among flat grave markers with the names of the dead, King County added another: this one to remember the names of people who couldn’t afford a grave of their own.

Underneath the shared marker rest the remains of 626 people who died in the county in roughly the past year, the most unclaimed bodies to date.

Indigent remains ceremonies, which the King County medical examiner’s office has been holding since the ‘90s, have been occurring more frequently in recent years and with greater numbers each time. Last year, the county buried 405. A decade ago, 137. Twenty years ago, it was 86.

“What is happening?” said King County Executive Girmay Zahilay at the start of Wednesday’s ceremony. “It could be the skyrocketing cost of living. It could be the housing crisis, the public health crisis. It could be the general disconnection that is happening in our society.”

There’s also the rise of fentanyl and estrangement from family.

The county doesn’t have an exact answer why. The examiner’s office will put hours into attempts to find the families of people who die. But if they find no one or no family is willing to pay for burial, the remains end up here. 

As this year’s remembrance began, more than a dozen clergy of different faiths stood under a green pavilion tent and took turns reading 626 names. The ritual lasted 40 minutes. Spread throughout the lawn, roughly 50 people watched, some holding flowers.

Among those listed were babies, as well as people reaching 90 years old.

Hundreds of people die without a home each year. The medical examiner’s office estimates only about 12% of those buried Wednesday were experiencing homelessness. 

“Everyone else (was) just living their lives and just having a hard time,” said James Sosik Jr., who runs the medical examiner’s indigent remains program.

Some did have people who cared for them in their final days.

Holding flowers picked from her garden, Lourdes Rodriguez came with her coworker to remember a former resident of the adult family home where they work in SeaTac. 

His name was Esteban Valdez, she said. He was an orphan in Cuba before immigrating to the U.S. 30 years ago — a story he told them over and over again. She said he later spent years homeless in Seattle before moving into their facility.

“He always said it was the best years of his life living in the adult family home,” Rodriguez said. 

She and her coworker became like his family. He left an impression, so much that when they learned of the ceremony, they knew they would show up to remember him.

Rodriguez said he was smart and funny and anytime he got any money, usually only from a small amount of government assistance, he would buy things for his neighbors.

“He will share what he had,” she said.

He was 72 when he died last year.

He was her first resident to die without family. Since then they’ve had several. Hearing the numbers are increasing across the county, she wanted to know why. 

Others had no known connection to those being buried. 

Shara Sparks has come for several years to honor those who died. A social worker with a hospice program, they know many people they help could end up among those in the ceremony.

“You see a lot of people without family,” they said. 

Still, the high number also came with a shock.

“When they said ‘626,’” Sparks said, “my heart sank.”

Sosik, with the medical examiner’s office, said he doesn’t like to hold the ceremonies so regularly — there’s been one for 2022, 2023, 2025 and now 2026. He doesn’t want them to become less special and too routine. 

But he said the medical examiner’s office doesn’t have a choice when the number of unclaimed bodies rises so high.

Throughout the ceremony, leaders spoke of the importance of caring for people who have nothing to give in return. To bury was to give a gift, they said. 

They also wondered what changes could prevent such high numbers in the future. 

“How do we turn now and say who’s in danger of being in a mass grave, and how do we love them now?” said Frank DiGirolamo, executive director of Operation Nightwatch, which works with homeless people in Seattle.

The new marker was added in rows next to others, all with the same words.

“Gone but not forgotten, these people of King County.”