Vidal Herrera: Civil Rights, Morgues, and East Los Angeles
After decades of defending his culture and building a name for himself as one of the city's top medical investigators, Herrera is back with a new artistic design that shines a light on. East L.A.
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LOS ANGELES — Vidal Herrera still remembers his address on Bunker Hill. It was there, in 1952, in what he calls an “economically deprived milieu,” that his uncommon American story began, one marked by forced displacement, personal loss and, ultimately, an unlikely career in one of society’s least visible professions.
Herrera, now 73, describes his life as “anything but predictable.” The third of four boys born to Pedro and Minerva Herrera, he grew up in neighborhoods repeatedly reshaped by redevelopment.
His family was displaced three times by eminent domain actions led by the now-defunct California Community Redevelopment Agency and Los Angeles County—first from Bunker Hill, then from the Chávez Ravine area to make way for what would become Dodger Stadium, and later again from Echo Park.
Those early disruptions were compounded by family upheaval. His father left when Herrera was five. His mother, stricken with tuberculosis, was quarantined at Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar. Herrera and his brothers were separated into foster homes before eventually reuniting with their mother in Echo Park in 1959.
“We were rich,” Herrera says now, “we just didn’t have a lot of money.”
A Childhood Of Work and Survival
By age 12, Herrera had a student worker’s permit from the Los Angeles Unified School District and a Social Security card, his entry into a life of constant labor. He shined shoes, sold and delivered newspapers on a Schwinn Sting-Ray, salvaged car parts, sold day-old bread at Grand Central Market and worked as a dishwasher, box boy and factory hand.
During spring break in 1970, he took a job in an ammunition plant in Vernon during the Vietnam War and suffered a knee injury that ended any hopes of a college football scholarship.
The work instilled a code he carries to this day: “Nothing is beneath you, and you’re not beneath anyone else.”
His adolescence unfolded amid the social upheaval of the 1960s. He marched in civil rights protests, was tear-gassed during demonstrations against the Vietnam War, and joined thousands of Latino students in the 1968 East Los Angeles “walkouts” organized by educator Sal Castro.
Inspired by labor leaders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, Herrera says the Chicano movement “singed my consciousness with an indelible significance for change.”
Academically, however, he struggled. Moving repeatedly set him back in school, and he graduated from Belmont High School in 1971 with a 1.9 GPA, after being held back three times. “A distracted student,” he calls himself, more focused on work than school.
Finding Purpose In The Morgue
After drifting through community colleges and hitchhiking across the country, Herrera found direction at the East Los Angeles Occupational Center. A 45-day nursing attendant course led him to work at LAC+USC Medical Center in multiple departments—and eventually into the county morgue.
There, under Chief Medical Examiner Thomas Noguchi, he found his calling.
“I was indirectly adopted by forensics,” Herrera says. “I knew this was my purpose.”
He volunteered for two years in Noguchi’s competitive practicum program and emerged as one of the few to earn a permanent position as an autopsy technician, later becoming a Deputy Medical Examiner-Coroner investigator—among the first Spanish-speaking investigators in Los Angeles County.
The work was grueling and relentless, but Herrera says it gave him identity and belonging. “I was part of something beyond myself,” he says.
Injury, Loss and a Long Road Back
On Aug. 28, 1984, Herrera’s life changed abruptly. While lifting a body during a suicide investigation, he suffered a catastrophic back injury that ended his career. Surgery left him temporarily paralyzed and began years of physical rehabilitation.
The losses mounted: his profession, his mobility, and his sense of identity. During recovery he says he battled addiction to pain medication, depression and thoughts of suicide. The cry of his infant son, Zack, stopped him from pulling the trigger of a revolver he held in his hand—a moment he calls his turning point.
“I promised him he would always have a daddy,” Herrera says.
After years of rejection—more than 2,000 job applications, he estimates—Herrera eventually found a second chance.
In 1988, the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center offered him work assisting with autopsies and teaching pathology residents. From there, he launched a private enterprise, 1-800-AUTOPSY, providing autopsy and post-mortem services.
Reinvention In “DeathCare”
Herrera’s ventures grew into an unusual suite of businesses. He founded Morgue Prop Rentals and Coffin Couches, supplying authentic props and consulting for television series including “CSI,” “Dexter,” “NCIS” and “Six Feet Under.” Media coverage followed, including national television appearances.
Despite success, he says his identity remains rooted in public service. “First and foremost I am a retired deputy medical investigator,” he says. “My mission has remained steadfast: the deceased must be protected and given a voice.”
Now living in La Crescenta with his wife of 45 years, Vicki Jo Klebanoff-Herrera, Herrera reflects on a life shaped by adversity and resilience. He is a father of two and grandfather of two, still working and still planning his next chapter—training disabled veterans to become autopsy technicians and offering them a path to independence.
“The Veterans Administration gave me a shot when no one else would,” he says. “Now it’s my turn to give back.”
Herrera’s story is one of survival, reinvention and stubborn hope—an American life forged in hardship, guided by purpose and, as he puts it, still unfinished.
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