![\"This](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Photo-3-for-web-story-about-new-Institute-of-Forensic-Sciences-in-Harris-County-03-16-2017_Credit-HC.jpeg\")
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Photo: Courtesy of the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences<\/p>\n
This photo shows one of the rooms where Harris County medical examiners conduct autopsies. (Photo: Courtesy of the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences)<\/p>\n
Luis Arturo Sanchez announced his resignation this week as Harris County\u2019s chief medical examiner \u2014 ending a more than 20-year career in the county\u2019s forensic sciences center.<\/p>\n
Sanchez penned a letter to Harris County commissioners about his resignation this week from the position as the county\u2019s top paid employee with an annual salary in the mid-six figures. It wasn\u2019t immediately clear when an interim will be appointed to the position. A spokesperson for the county administration\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.<\/p>\n
The resignation was made public in a news release on Thursday detailing Sanchez\u2019s tenure in the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. <\/p>\n
Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n \u201cI am proud of what our team has accomplished and confident in the strength of the organization to advance its mission,\u201d Sanchez wrote in his resignation letter to county commissioners. \u201cI look forward to supporting a smooth and orderly transition during the coming weeks, and I am cheering for the continued success of IFS.\u201d <\/p>\n RELATED: Houston bayou deaths have risen during the last decade, medical examiner report shows<\/a><\/p>\n Sanchez was appointed as the county\u2019s chief medical examiner by commissioners in 2002. He is credited for sustaining the institute\u2019s national accreditations and navigating the center through the COVID-19 pandemic, which claimed the lives of more than 8,000 Harris County residents.<\/p>\n \u201cAs chief medical examiner and IFS Executive Director, Dr. Sanchez helps bring justice to families whose loved ones have been victims of crime by performing autopsies,\u201d Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo wrote in a statement Thursday. \u201cHe\u2019s also transformed the department into a national leader in the field of forensic sciences.\u201d <\/p>\n He unveiled the institute\u2019s new $75 million, state-of-the-art forensic sciences building in the Texas Medical Center in 2017, funded by a 2007 voter-approved bond.<\/p>\n The institute has over the years been embattled by case backlogs \u2014 which appeared to reach a peak in 2016, officials previously told Houston Public Media. The backlog was exacerbated by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2020. <\/p>\n The county in 2023 invested $1.8 million<\/a> into staffing and employee retention initiatives in the medical examiner\u2019s office. Accelerating attrition rates in the office since the onset of COVID-19 impacted a longstanding backlog in the county\u2019s criminal court system. The institute received a $12 million federal grant<\/a> in 2023 to address the issues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Courtesy of the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences This photo shows one of the rooms where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[77097,405,15075,43528,56,58,57,66,77098,223],"class_list":["post-194580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-chief-medical-examiner","tag-harris-county","tag-harris-county-institute-of-forensic-sciences","tag-harris-county-medical-examiner","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-local","tag-luis-arturo-sanchez","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}