BOISE, Idaho — “If you are going to kill somebody, definitely do it in Idaho because you are very likely to get away with it here,” said Idaho House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel on the first day of the state legislative session. To be clear, Representative Rubel believes law enforcement does their best to protect Idahoans, and she does not truly encourage anyone to commit murder but that bold statement prompted Idaho News 6 to look into the stunning lack of standards Idaho has set for state Coroners.
"We have no standards whatsoever for when autopsies are to be conducted," said Rep. Ilana Rubel. As a result, Idaho lawmakers are looking for a change when it comes to investigating suspicious deaths.
A state-wide, multi-year study by The Office of Performance Evaluations revealed Idaho lags behind other states, with autopsies performed in fewer than 4% of deaths between 2018 and 2022. Nationwide that number doubles to almost 8%.
"The overwhelming majority of child deaths are investigated in other states and not in Idaho," said Rep. Rubel.
We spoke with Ada County Coroner Rich Riffle, who provides autopsy services for a majority of Idaho coroners.
"Out of county [coroners], they bring their autopsy cases here. It's rare that we would go to them to help with an investigation [but] we will try dang hard. If they ask, we're going," said Coroner Riffle.
Coroner Riffle sees firsthand the difficulties small counties face regarding suspicious deaths.
"[In] the smaller counties, you have part-time people— you know farmers, plumbers, all these people working to put food on the table for their family… oh 'yeah by the way could you go out and do this while you're at it?' So it's like, death investigations: they care, but it's not at their frontal lobes," explained Coroner Riffle.
Rep. Rubel, points to the high-profile murder of Tammy Daybell in 2019, Who was quickly deemed a natural death and buried without an autopsy.
Her body had to be exhumed months later as part of an investigation that eventually led to a murder conviction for Chad Daybell.
"We would really like to see a system where we have a little bit more uniformity and access to resources where maybe the state provides some type of medical expertise," said Rep. Rubel.
"State-wide standards I think would be a good thing, absolutely. The bottom line is still going to boil down to resources. We could have the best standards on the planet but if you don't have the resources to do it…" nothing will happen explained Coroner Riffle.
Rep. Rubel says she and other lawmakers have started to draft legislation, and she hopes to see a bi-partisan effort to improve suspicious death investigations across the state. Coroner Riffle says he is interested in being a part of those conversations.
We’ll continue to follow this topic throughout the legislative session.
