Fremont County Coroner says 2025 stats are ‘better’ so far than in ‘most years’

(Lander, WY) – Fremont County Coroner Erin Ivie offered an update on activity in her office so far in 2025 during this week’s Fremont County Commission meeting.

The numbers are “better” than in “most years,” Ivie noted, with only three accidental deaths recorded so far in 2025 – down by five from the same time in 2024 – and only one homicide compared to three the year before.

Her office has handled 28 cases so far this year, Ivie said – the same as last year – and no suicides have been recorded during the first few months of 2025, just as there were no suicides recorded at this point in 2024.

Autopsies

During this fiscal year, which began in July 2024, Ivie said her office has performed 25 autopsies for Fremont County – 20 in 2024 and five so far in 2025 – and more than 30 autopsies for contractual counties – 25 in 2024 and eight so far in 2025, with a ninth scheduled for this week. 

Fremont County has collected more than $56,720 in revenue from those contractual autopsies, she said, with an additional $9,625 still awaiting payment, bringing the anticipated total income to more than $66,345 so far.

“The projected revenue for this fiscal year was set at $69,300,” Ivie noted. “We’re on target to surpass that projection by the end of this month or the very beginning of the next month if things continue the way that they do.”

She proposed using those excess revenues to cover the costs of performing the contractual autopsies, explaining that she had only budgeted for 30 such procedures.

New building

Ivie said she has a “blueprint plan” outlining her agency’s “working needs” for the building the county recently purchased for the coroner’s office at 201 E. Washington Ave. in Riverton. 

That “basic outline” has been submitted to the building maintenance department and Commissioner Mike Jones “as part of the construction process,” she said.  

Jones said he is working on putting “the whole scope of the building project together” before requesting funding from the Commission.

“(We’re) still in that process,” he said. “It’s taking a little bit longer than I expected (because we’re) shorthanded. … I think that’s going to be a part of the budget process.”

In the meantime, Ivie said she has heard reports that “there was a broken water line in (the new building) over the weekend.”

“Somehow the gas had been shut off (so) a water line froze and broke,” she said. “That was found by building maintenance yesterday, and they were in the process of trying (to) fix that.”

Separately, Ivie added, she has set up a meeting with the previous owner of the property to “make sure … we know how to use” the solar energy system that powers the building.

“I was told by the previous owner that in the wintertime the highest the heating bill got was $55, and the highest the cooling bill got in the summer was about $100,” Ivie explained. “So if we can keep that solar panel working, (we’ll) be paying a lot less than what we do for the three buildings we currently occupy.”

For more information, call the Fremont County Coroner’s Office at (307) 856-7150.