How big and empty is Texas. See this article.

About two dozen states including Texas, use a local coroner system under which someone is elected or appointed to verify that a deceased individual is, well, dead.

In Texas, the coroner's role falls to the 817 elected justices of the peace. The JPs marry couples, handle small claims disputes and come when called, usually by law enforcement, to verify death when someone doesn't die in a hospital or when a doctor cannot — or will not — sign a death certificate.

"I'm the coroner, and everything," explained David Beebe, one of the two justices of the peace in Presidio County who were called on Saturday to come to Cibolo Creek Ranch, 28 miles southwest of Marfa, after Scalia, a guest of the resort's owner, was discovered dead in his room.

But both Beebe and Presidio County's other JP, Juanita Bishop, were too far away, so the Presidio County Sheriff's Office contacted the county's chief executive, or county judge, Guevara.

What happened next speaks to the remoteness of Texas geography and the nation's haphazard system of managing death.

Thea Whalen, an attorney who trains JPs at the Texas Justice Training Center in Austin, said the state's size and population distribution is something many fail to grasp.

About 75 percent of the state's population lives along an urban triangle anchored by Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston. It's a state so large that El Paso is closer to San Diego, Calif., than to Houston. Three-fourths of the state's counties have populations at or under 50,000 people.

"I think that's something folks outside of Texas don't really get," Whalen said. "It's such a large geographical area."

While autopsies are done in Texas and can be requested by a JP when foul play is suspected, there are only 13 medical examiner offices, far fewer than one for each of the state's 254 counties.

Guevara, the county judge called to verify that Scalia was dead, was a justice of the peace for 25 years before being elected Presidio County's chief executive in 2014, and media reports show she followed the Justice Training Center's guidelines and state law.

She talked to law enforcement at the ranch and to Scalia's physician, as is required before verifying a death. Guevara, who did not return phone calls from The Texas Tribune, came to the conclusion, according to media reports, that Scalia died of natural causes.

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"The law does not indicate that you have to go in person," Whalen said. "Our justices of the peaces do not declare someone dead. They're to investigate and determine the cause of death."

Scalia died in Presidio County Texas. It's almost 4, 000 square miles. Almost 8,000 people live there. So Yeah, it has an average of 2 people per square mile. That was the whole point of this ranch, you were just miles from anywhere.

Not if there is nothing unusual about the death. He was in poor health which is probably why the family has said nothing. Actually, they did say something. They said they did not want an autopsy. His health must have been that bad.

It would have been better if they had an autopsy to settle these rumors, but that does happen for every death

Where was the closest mortuary? He was in the middle of nowhere in Texas I just looked at the two closest towns on the map to this ranch. There are literally actual ghost towns. Plata and Shafter, Texas. Marfa the closet town, is less than 2,000 people and is known as an arts colony.

Texas is damn big and empty in parts.

All super shady.