MSNBC.com - New Orleans Turns Attention To Its Dead

A woman’s body remained lying at the corner of Jackson Avenue and Magazine Street — a business area in the lower Garden District with antique shops on the edge of blighted housing. The body had been there since at least Wednesday.

As days passed, people covered her with blankets or plastic. By Sunday, a short wall of bricks had been built around her body, holding down a plastic tarpaulin. On it, someone had spray-painted a cross and the words, “Here lies Vera. God help us.”

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