Gail Delaughter/Houston Public Media
Water pours through a storm drain along Buffalo Bayou in downtown Houston
Thirty-one dead bodies have been pulled from bayous this year in Harris County, according to a new report from the county medical examiner’s office. That is fewer than in 2024, but still significantly higher than the several years before.
The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences recently shared the report on its website, with data through Dec. 10. Much of the information had been previously reported by Houston Public Media, but the new data gives a bird’s-eye view to county reporting on Houston-area bayou deaths, including an upward trend in recent years.
So far this year, 31 bodies have been found, with the most recent incident Oct. 8. Six of the bodies were discovered during an 11-day period in September.
Sign up for the Hello, Houston! daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.
RELATED: How news of Houston bayou deaths sparked a serial killer conspiracy theory
In 2024, 35 bodies were found, a peak during the nine years included in the report — which shows that more than 200 bodies have been pulled from Houston-area bayous since 2017. The highest numbers of bayou-related deaths during that span came during the last two years.
In 2017, 20 bodies were found in bayous. Twenty-seven were found in 2020, the highest number until 2024. During the other years cited in the report, between 12 and 22 bodies were pulled from local bayous.
Autopsy reports are broken down by “cause of death” and “manner of death.” The former looks into exactly what caused the individual’s death, while the latter looks at the circumstances that led to their death.
Fifteen of the 31 bodies found in bayous this year have an “undetermined” cause of death, according to the medical examiner’s office, while 18 have an “undetermined” manner of death.
“In bayou-related deaths, the bodies often have extensive decompositional changes due to weather/temperature, submersion in water, and marine animal activity,” the report reads. “This affects the ability to interpret findings at autopsy and might also interfere with toxicology results. This will usually lead to an ‘Undetermined’ manner of death. In addition, it might be unclear as to HOW the person ended up in the bayou (i.e., if they fell into the bayou vs. if they entered the bayou to go for a swim).”
In cases this year that had a cause of death listed, eight involved drowning. Two were ruled suicides with gunshot wounds to the head. One case, in May, was determined to be a homicide as a result of multiple blunt impact injuries.