“Someone shows up with a dead body and just says they died of natural causes…do you just take their word for it?”
An Idaho coroner ruled Betty Strong’s 2016 death as natural causes from Parkinson’s complications without checking her medical records, visiting the death scene, or doing much of anything except taking her husband’s word for it. The body was cremated within days. That husband, Clayton Strong, later married another woman who turned up murdered. Idaho coroners are part-time elected officials running on budgets of $85,000, affording maybe ten autopsies a year. When Boise’s own coroner was asked whether murderers have escaped prosecution because of this system, his answer was a blunt yes.