Did Idaho’s Coroner System Let a Man Get Away with Killing His Spouse? — ProPublica

Clayton Robust pulled as much as a tiny hospital in Idaho, walked by the emergency room doorways and advised a clerk that his spouse’s physique was outdoors of their SUV.

A sheriff’s deputy was on the hospital speaking to Robust by the point the coroner arrived. This was an “unattended” loss of life: one the place no physician might attest to a medical cause for the individual’s demise. That made it the coroner’s job to find out how and why she died.

Robust, a stocky man with white hair and bushy eyebrows, defined that he and his spouse lived in an RV park on the sting of the woods close by. He stated his spouse had been bedridden for years with Parkinson’s illness. That morning she’d woken up and requested for peanut butter and water, Robust advised the deputy. He discovered her lifeless a while later.

The coroner appeared over Betty Robust’s physique. It was skinny and frail. He didn’t see a cause to suspect something aside from a pure loss of life for this 75-year-old lady. The sheriff’s deputy appeared to be happy with the reason too. So, the coroner dominated that Betty Robust died round 8:40 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2016, from issues of Parkinson’s, and he signed off on permitting cremation of her physique.

Lower than 5 years later, Clayton Robust’s subsequent spouse turned up lifeless, too: shot within the chest in Texas.

It seems that each marriages had a historical past of home unrest, with visits from police who documented threats to every lady’s security.

It’s inconceivable to know whether or not a unique method to investigating Betty Robust’s loss of life would have uncovered foul play. What is definite is that clues and proof within the case had been misplaced eternally — and Idaho’s system for loss of life investigation let it occur.

Relations of each ladies imagine a extra thorough investigation of the loss of life in Idaho might need saved the lifetime of Clayton Robust’s subsequent spouse in Texas.

“Somebody reveals up with a lifeless physique and simply says they died of pure causes,” stated Amy Belanger, one among Betty Robust’s youngsters. “I imply, actually, do you simply take their phrase for it?”

The reply is not any, in accordance with 5 of six nationwide loss of life investigation consultants ProPublica consulted. They stated the coroner ought to have obtained medical data to verify Betty Robust was identified with Parkinson’s, examined the trailer the place her husband stated she died, or each.

“You possibly can consider all types of eventualities — prison, unintended or pure — that would have occurred there,” stated Jennifer Snippen, a loss of life investigator, educator and advisor in Oregon. “However my argument is, in the event you don’t go to the scene and also you don’t take a look at the medical data, you simply don’t know.”

A lot of the county coroners in Idaho are part-time elected officers with tiny budgets and no oversight or state funding to help their work. The nationwide consultants stated that form of system is extra susceptible to cursory investigations just like the one into Betty Robust’s loss of life.

The failure to reform loss of life investigations in Idaho has raised alarms for greater than 70 years, in accordance with present and former Idaho coroners and former ProPublica reporting.

A nationwide journal known as Idaho “the very best place within the nation for a prison to ‘get away with homicide’ within the literal sense” due to the state’s “antiquated county coroner’s system,” the Idaho Statesman newspaper reported in 1951.

Requested whether or not murderers have escaped prosecution in Idaho’s coroner system, Wealthy Riffle, coroner for the county that features Boise, stated, “My humble opinion? Sure.”

That just about occurred in 2019 when one inexperienced Idaho coroner determined to take the phrase of Chad Daybell that his spouse, Tammy Daybell, had died in her sleep after persistent well being issues, vomiting and a cough. Her physique was later exhumed after his subsequent spouse’s youngsters went lacking. An post-mortem by the Utah medical expert’s workplace discovered what medical data would have proven, had the Idaho coroner requested them: Tammy Daybell was wholesome. A jury convicted Chad Daybell of murdering her by asphyxiation and of killing his subsequent spouse’s two youngest youngsters. The case is beneath enchantment.

At trial, coroner Brenda Dye stated she had regrets. Her voice shaking, Dye advised the court docket she would have ordered an post-mortem if she’d identified higher, however “at the moment, with my restricted coaching and being new, I did the very best I might.” She declined ProPublica’s interview request, citing the case’s impact on her psychological well being.

Idaho isn’t the one place the place loss of life investigations fall brief. As a result of there isn’t any uniform federal system, the rigor with which your loss of life is investigated is dependent upon the place you die. Different states lack sufficient forensic pathologists to do autopsies. And lots of native programs like Idaho County’s are squeezed for cash.

However even amongst its short-staffed, underfunded friends, Idaho stands out. One measure is the state’s post-mortem charge: third-lowest for autopsies in all deaths, final within the nation for autopsies in identified instances of murder.

Gov. Brad Little stated in January that he would help extra state sources to assist Idaho’s coroners do their jobs. However he by no means received the prospect; coroner-related payments handed by the Idaho Legislature this yr contained no funding or different help for coroners and loss of life investigations.

So for now, every of Idaho’s 44 coroners will bear prices that different states assist cowl: driving a physique a whole lot of miles to an post-mortem; paying for a few of these autopsies; or attempting to recruit yet one more individual to hitch Idaho’s statewide forensic pathology workforce of three.

“If you happen to don’t care sufficient about how loss of life investigations are finished in your jurisdiction to spend money on the individuals doing it, to supply them with the sources or to have excessive sufficient requirements for the individuals that you just rent to do that, you’re going to get what you get, what you settle for,” stated Snippen. “You’re going to get what you enable to occur.”

Florida, 2010-2015

Betty Brock was a mom of seven who loved singing and artwork, lengthy bicycle rides, organizing household pictures and researching her ancestry.

She was caring for her terminally in poor health husband in 2010 when Clayton Robust befriended her on the web, in accordance with Belanger, her daughter. Robust claimed to be “principally destitute and residing in his automotive,” a backstory that appealed to a girl with a mushy spot for taking in “wounded individuals” and attempting to heal them with love, Belanger stated.

Robust drove a whole lot of miles from Southwest Florida and confirmed up on the Brocks’ property within the Florida panhandle. They agreed he might sleep in his automotive there so long as he helped with caregiving and home tasks. Quickly he was sleeping in an outbuilding on the property, then in the home.

Betty’s youngsters had been puzzled as this newcomer turned a fixture of their mom’s life. They wished to present Robust an opportunity, however they quickly grew suspicious.

Betty Brock’s husband died in August 2010. By January, she was Betty Robust.

After their courthouse marriage, Clayton Robust used their now-shared funds to purchase a Ford truck and an Airstream trailer and took his bride on the highway, Belanger stated. The couple visited nationwide parks that Betty had at all times wished to see. They camped and hiked their manner throughout the continent. They purchased mining claims and panned for gold within the distant Idaho wilderness.

After that honeymoon, the partitions round Betty Robust grew impenetrable, her youngsters stated. In accordance with what two of her youngsters advised ProPublica and to statements two others made to police, Clayton turned the gatekeeper of all communication with their mom, and he padlocked the doorways of their Florida house and held the important thing.

The final time Betty Robust noticed her main care physician in Florida was in Might 2013, in accordance with data her son obtained after the loss of life. Earlier than that, she hadn’t been in since 2010, the yr Clayton Robust entered her life. The notes from the 2013 checkup present well being points widespread in older adults however no Parkinson’s analysis, and neither Parkinson’s nor different neurodegenerative ailments had been listed within the household historical past part.

The kids watched from afar as the wedding devolved over the following two years. Between January 2014 and February 2015, police went to the couple’s residence for welfare checks and home disturbances no less than six instances, in accordance with police studies that Belanger offered to ProPublica.

Her youngsters advised police that Clayton Robust threatened to shoot them in the event that they set foot on the property, threatened to harm their mom in the event that they didn’t again off, and prevented her from seeing a physician.

Within the first of these police visits, in January 2014, the data present that Belanger’s sister, who lived close by, known as the sheriff whereas standing outdoors the Robust residence, a brown home surrounded by oak timber and pines on a winding nation highway. A deputy arrived to seek out Belanger’s sister and Clayton Robust in a stalemate, then talked to everybody outdoors, in accordance with a sheriff’s workplace report. The deputy then watched as Betty Robust turned to her husband to “ask him for permission” to hug her daughter, and Clayton Robust “eliminated a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the porch entrance gate so Betty might go within the yard” for the hug.

The report says the deputy made a referral to Florida Division of Kids and Households, the company that investigates doable abuse of susceptible adults, and that the division opened a case.

An analogous scene performed out when one among Betty Robust’s sons went to the home to verify on her in February 2015. For 2 years, Clayton Robust turned the son away when he tried to go to, and this time Robust “threatened to shoot him with a gun if he didn’t go away,” the son advised a sheriff’s deputy. Clayton Robust denied that, the deputy’s report says.

The deputy discovered Betty Robust alone on a mattress in an RV parked behind the house, the report says. She stated she had Parkinson’s illness and couldn’t get round properly. Clayton wasn’t holding her in opposition to her will, she advised the deputy, however she couldn’t maintain herself with out him.

She had a walkie-talkie. The deputy requested: Is Clayton utilizing that radio and telling you what to say? Betty answered “no” whereas nodding her head “sure.” It was a cold afternoon, and the deputy observed Betty had a blanket however no heater.

“Betty’s demeanor, residing situations, and the controlling conduct by Clayton” warranted a referral to the Florida Division of Kids and Households, the deputy wrote.

Requested for the result of that referral, a spokesperson advised ProPublica the division investigates “all allegations of abuse, neglect, or exploitation” however that data of these investigations are confidential beneath state legislation.

Days after the referral in February 2015, police had been once more dispatched to the Florida house. This time, it wasn’t one among Betty Robust’s youngsters who known as; it was somebody from grownup protecting companies in want of police backup. In accordance with the dispatch log, the employee stated Clayton Robust “has threatened earlier than to tug a gun on her and may be very anti-law enforcement.”

The couple left city a month later. Betty Robust’s youngsters by no means heard from her once more.

Idaho, December 2016

By the point Betty Robust died in Idaho County in December 2016, she hadn’t been seen in Florida in 21 months.

Idaho County’s elected coroner, Cody Funke, had been within the job about as lengthy.

He knew the county properly. Its huge forests, mountains and meadows stretch throughout extra land than Massachusetts. Rugged and distant, it attracts individuals who wish to be left alone and who mistrust each authorities and traditional drugs.

Funke, pronounced “funk,” was in his late 20s in 2014 when he realized his part-time job at a funeral house was being eradicated. His boss requested: Had he thought of operating for coroner? The coroner on the time was retiring and urged Funke to do it. So did Funke’s boss from his different part-time job, as an EMT. What sealed the deal for Funke: As coroner, he would get medical insurance.

Funke began the job with a sense of “good luck, godspeed, you’re gonna want it.” There was no apprenticeship or ride-along to observe seasoned execs, like he’d gotten when he educated to be an EMT. There was a coaching convention he attended in Las Vegas earlier than taking workplace, and Funke acquired greater than double the 24 hours of coroner training required by Idaho legislation. Even so, he isn’t positive it was sufficient to organize him.

Funke realized on his first day that he wasn’t getting a automobile to maneuver our bodies from a loss of life scene. If the native funeral house’s automobile was occupied, Funke had to make use of his household truck. A yr after Betty Robust’s loss of life, the county fee received the coroner a automobile: a pickup truck the sheriff’s workplace didn’t want anymore.

The workplace he inherited additionally had no digital camera, and the county hadn’t budgeted to present him one. He’d have to make use of his telephone to take photos of our bodies and loss of life scenes.

There was no morgue.

The Idaho County coroner’s workplace didn’t even have an precise workplace.

Funke’s predecessors saved their recordsdata on paper, at house, he realized. The earlier coroner’s home had flooded, so when Funke took over, all that remained slot in two manila folders.

The coroner’s complete funds this yr is $85,651. By comparability, coroner’s places of work serving small populations had a median funds of $280,000 in 2018, in accordance with a nationwide examine.

Paid $13,000 a yr, Funke is on name 24 hours a day and, final yr, investigated and dominated on 71 deaths, about one each 5 days. Papers on a further 102 deaths of individuals beneath a physician’s care got here by needing his signature for cremation.

Funke does the coroner work on high of a full-time job. When a name is available in throughout enterprise hours, he dips out to go to a loss of life scene. If somebody dies at dinnertime, he may not see his household till morning.

He should determine with every loss of life what the circumstances require: a easy telephone name; an all-out investigation with post-mortem, witness interviews, tissue samples and extra; or one thing within the center.

To look at a loss of life scene, Funke might need to drive three hours or longer every manner. Each time he orders an post-mortem, Funke or his deputies need to take the physique to the closest post-mortem middle, a visit that takes a full day and normally calls for an in a single day keep. His present funds can cowl 10 autopsies a yr.

In these first years as coroner, Funke usually leaned on police.

Funke discovered it unusual that Clayton Robust had loaded his spouse’s physique into their SUV and pushed to the hospital. Most individuals name 911 to report a loss of life and watch for assist to reach, Funke stated. However Robust provided an evidence that appeared to fulfill the sheriff’s deputy: He didn’t know many individuals on the town and wasn’t positive what to do.

Robust had stated his spouse hadn’t seen a physician as a result of she caught to homeopathic treatments. That’s commonplace for Funke to listen to.

The widower gave Funke the impression a coroner and sheriff’s deputy wouldn’t be welcome contained in the trailer the place she died. That’s not so outdoors the norm for Idaho County both, Funke stated.

Betty Robust’s loss of life appeared like a simple name. So Funke helped transfer her physique to a cot to be taken from the hospital to a neighborhood funeral house.

In accordance with a later report from the sheriff’s workplace, Clayton Robust confirmed up on the funeral house that day, stated he wished her cremated and paid $2,310 in money. The way in which Funke heard it from a funeral house worker a couple of days later, Robust paid in $100 payments out of a lunch field.

The element struck Funke as peculiar. However he let it go.

Florida, 2017

The couple’s Airstream trailer confirmed up in the future in January 2017, parked outdoors their home in Florida. A neighbor known as Amy Belanger with the information, and he or she dispatched her brother, Daniel, who lived close by. They’d spent nearly two years fearing the worst.

The one individual on the home was Clayton Robust.

The household’s matriarch had died a couple of weeks in the past in Harpster, Idaho, Robust stated. Then he advised his son-in-law to get off the property.

Amy Belanger began making calls the following day. One of many first individuals she reached was Funke, the county coroner. She was perplexed, she stated. Why hadn’t anybody known as her or her siblings? Why didn’t he query whether or not Betty Robust had truly succumbed to a illness or if one thing else had killed her? Belanger advised Funke in regards to the historical past of police calls in Florida and considerations about their mom’s security.

Funke thought again to what he’d heard from the funeral house. A lunch field of money for a cremation? That picture by no means sat fairly proper. Now he had strong floor for suspicion. Funke advised Belanger he’d discuss to the county prosecutor and see what may very well be finished.

The prosecutor and the sheriff’s workplace initially advised Belanger they’d opened a murder investigation, in accordance with an in depth timeline she created on the time. However the loss of life scene — the Strongs’ trailer — was lengthy gone, the physique cremated. The sheriff’s investigator and prosecutor in the end didn’t appear to suppose there was sufficient proof for a murder investigation, Funke advised ProPublica.

(The prosecutor and sheriff’s investigator didn’t return telephone calls, emails or licensed letters from ProPublica requesting touch upon their choices following Betty Robust’s loss of life.)

Notes from Belanger’s timeline quote a Florida detective saying he was sorry the loss of life had occurred outdoors his jurisdiction. He defined to her that “in Florida, deputies would have had the medical expert’s workplace confirm medical data and take a blood pattern.”

The yr Betty Robust died, 20% of pure deaths investigated by a medical expert within the a part of Florida the place she had lived underwent autopsies earlier than the examiner determined the reason for loss of life was pure. About 65% of all deaths taken in by Florida’s medical expert that yr had been autopsied. Each numbers dwarf Idaho’s coroner post-mortem charges.

It’s not simply Florida. Many states have extra refined programs for investigating deaths than Idaho’s. In a lot of the nation, centralized state medical expert places of work oversee all loss of life investigations or present a backstop to elected coroners in every county.

Idaho’s rural neighbor Montana has a hybrid system of health workers and coroners, supported by a coroner liaison who works with loss of life investigators to make the method extra constant statewide. And subsequent door in Wyoming, a state board units guidelines for coroners to observe. The foundations spell out what every loss of life investigation ought to embrace: scene investigation, toxicology pattern, DNA pattern, pictures, exterior examination of the physique and a listing of property, proof and medicines.

Jennifer Snippen, the loss of life investigator in Oregon, was one of many consultants who drafted the Nationwide Institute of Justice’s 2024 death-scene investigation guidebook.

She stated loss of life investigations usually tend to be thorough when states and counties give their investigators sufficient funding and training, “in order that they’ve the motivation and the flexibility to get to as many scenes, and get as a lot details about each single loss of life, as doable.”

Those that examine the work of coroners and health workers within the U.S. have realized that the deaths of aged persons are particularly more likely to be written off as age-related, with out contemplating whether or not the individual could have additionally been a sufferer of abuse or neglect.

Snippen’s analysis in 2023 is among the most up-to-date research to verify that. She reviewed information from 1000’s of instances. The individual least more likely to get a scene investigation or post-mortem? An aged lady who dies at house.

Lauri McGivern, a nationally acknowledged skilled in loss of life investigations, stated nationwide requirements would have Funke confirm Betty Robust’s Parkinson’s analysis and ask extra questions of Clayton Robust as the only caregiver of a susceptible grownup. McGivern, who coordinates medicolegal loss of life investigations in Vermont, reviewed the information that Funke was given on the time of Betty Robust’s loss of life and his subsequent report at ProPublica’s request.

To observe nationwide requirements, McGivern stated, Funke additionally would have gone to the Airstream trailer or requested legislation enforcement to look at the loss of life scene and report again to him.

However McGivern and different consultants stated they perceive why Funke didn’t observe these nationwide pointers — as a result of they’ve seen it occur so many instances in locations like rural Idaho.

“He’s doing what he was proven learn how to do,” McGivern stated. “And possibly doing the very best he can, with no funds and no help and no training.”

Pissed off by how little Idaho officers knew and why they hadn’t dug additional into her mom’s loss of life, Amy Belanger channeled her grief into looking for solutions on her personal.

She adopted a path of public data left by Clayton Robust. Had he harmed different ladies? Had he been in a relationship with anyone who went lacking? “I used to be wanting into his previous to see if there was a sample like that,” Belanger stated. One thing she might share with officers in Idaho.

Then she stumbled throughout a doc: a current marriage license.

Three months after depositing Betty Robust’s physique at a hospital in Idaho, Clayton Robust wed a girl from Texas.

Belanger wanted to warn her.

Texas, 2017-2021

Shirley Weatherley had lots in widespread with Betty Robust. She was a mom and grandmother. She’d been married earlier than. She lived in a small, modest house on a big piece of land in a rural locale, the place she’d been caring for a terminally in poor health former partner when Robust contacted her on Fb.

They’d identified one another as youngsters in Lubbock. Their reconnection after he arrived at her home in Weatherford, a suburb of Fort Price, finally started to fret her youngsters.

“He remoted her,” stated Jamie Barrington, Weatherley’s son with a earlier husband. “He wouldn’t let grandkids, my brother — anyone’d come over, he simply saved them at arm’s size.”

Barrington stated he and different members of Weatherley’s household had suspicions about Robust. Then they linked with Belanger and heard what occurred in Florida and Idaho.

Belanger urged the household to inform their mom all the things they’d heard. She “truly was pleading with us to be careful,” Barrington recalled.

Understanding one other household was anxious helped gas Amy Belanger’s quest for the reality about her mom’s loss of life. Her siblings chipped in to assist Belanger hire a van and drive throughout the nation looking for clues — something that would make clear her mom’s loss of life.

As soon as she received to Idaho, Belanger spent greater than every week investigating. She met with the coroner and sheriff. She went to the mining claims the Strongs had bought. She stayed on the RV park the place Betty Robust died and interviewed the individuals who’d owned it in 2016; they remembered speaking to one another about how “hinky” the loss of life and Clayton Robust’s response to it appeared.

Again in Texas, Weatherley’s household tried to warn her.

After they relayed the story about Betty Robust to her, Weatherley chalked it as much as a grieving household attempting to deal with loss by greedy for an evidence, Barrington stated. In spite of everything, Robust had a loss of life certificates that listed pure causes.

The main points Barrington later realized from relations and police about his mom’s life with Robust had been “fairly horrific,” he stated. Weatherley had reported that Robust threatened to kill her, however no prices had been filed. Then at one level, within the midst of an argument with Robust, Weatherley lobbed the accusations about Betty Robust’s loss of life at him, Barrington stated. Robust flew right into a rage.

Weatherley known as police in July 2021. She and Robust had been splitting up, and he shoved her whereas shifting his stuff out of the home, Weatherley advised the officer. Robust had “damage her” previously, so she known as police to verify it didn’t occur once more, the officer’s report says. The officer received Robust’s aspect of the story — she was “operating him off,” however he didn’t push her — and caught round till Robust agreed to depart.

Police would later doc discovering two objects in the home. The primary was a replica of Weatherley’s will that left all the things to Robust, on which she’d written “VOID,” the second was a digital digital camera hidden of their bed room. The digital camera contained selfies of accidents to her face and chest and a video of Robust placing his arm round her neck as she screamed for assist.

Robust persuaded Weatherley to let him again into their house as soon as extra on Aug. 4, 2021, in accordance with police data.

4 days later, Weatherley’s son and grandson discovered her physique wrapped in a grey tarp close to the entrance steps to her house. She’d been shot within the chest. Authorities matched shell casings on the scene to an AK-47-style rifle, which safety footage confirmed Robust ditching in a buying cart outdoors a Walmart.

Picked up later by police in Mexico, Robust died of cardiac arrest whereas awaiting extradition in Weatherley’s killing.

In the present day

Jamie Barrington, Shirley Weatherley’s son, was reluctant at first to talk publicly about his mom’s loss of life in Texas, even years later. He agreed to speak with ProPublica, he stated, as a result of he desires Idaho’s coroner system to enhance. He stated he by no means imagined {that a} loss of life like Betty Robust’s may very well be dominated “pure” based mostly on what a partner advised authorities.

“I actually imagine that if there had been a correct investigation and never taking his phrase for it,” Barrington stated, “that it in all probability would have made a giant distinction” in what occurred to Shirley Weatherley.

Phrase of Weatherley’s homicide finally reached Funke, the coroner in Idaho. He stated in hindsight, Robust’s actions in Idaho County appear extra suspicious than they did on the time to his inexperienced eyes and ears.

Now, after 10 years as coroner, “I might have pushed somewhat bit tougher” to have an officer or deputy observe up or go to the RV park with him. He would have requested police to make use of a nationwide database — one he didn’t find out about on the time — to seek out Betty Robust’s relations and study extra about her background. “I’ve belief points after instances like this,” he stated.

Funke stated the story of Betty Robust’s loss of life must be advised, even when it reveals that he and Idaho County made errors, as a result of it may assist lawmakers perceive what’s unsuitable with the state’s system.

Idaho’s coroners want extra funding, he stated, as a result of proper now they’re an afterthought in county budgets. Most counties set a coroner wage at what quantities to lower than minimal wage, so it’s inconceivable for somebody like Funke to be coroner with out a second, full-time job.

“These places of work ought to be totally staffed,” he stated. “Possibly now we have one or two individuals which can be right here full time to reply questions and reply to those calls, versus, ‘Hey, I’ve received to take break day work, boss.’”

And he believes new coroners who lack expertise ought to be required to discover ways to work a case from begin to end earlier than they’re known as out to a loss of life like Betty Robust’s.

Daniel Belanger, one among Betty Robust’s youngsters, got here away from his interactions with Idaho County officers satisfied that the one manner deaths like his mom’s might be correctly investigated is thru laws forcing coroners and legislation enforcement companies to vary their approaches.

“They utterly dropped the ball,” he advised ProPublica.

Amy Belanger stated her household has reclaimed only a few of her mom’s possessions from the Airstream trailer. Robust emptied the Florida home of household heirlooms after their mom’s loss of life, Belanger stated. A lot of the household picture albums her mom toiled over are gone.

The brown home on the winding highway in Florida continues to be there. Belanger’s recollections of household cookouts and vacation gatherings linger in the home; they weren’t wiped away by the police visits and padlocked doorways. However the household house isn’t the household’s anymore. Years later, it’s caught in authorized limbo — the deed nonetheless within the identify of Clayton Robust and Shirley Weatherley, the lady he married after the loss of life of Betty Robust.