 - More than half of the autopsies the Fremont County Coroner’s Office conducted this fiscal year were completed on behalf of other agencies, the Fremont County Commission heard this week.){kind=link}
(Lander, WY) – More than half of the autopsies the Fremont County Coroner’s Office conducted this fiscal year were completed on behalf of other agencies, the Fremont County Commission heard this week.
Coroner Erin Ivie said her office has conducted 81 autopsies so far this fiscal year, and of those, 48 (almost 60 percent) were for other counties – more than she had anticipated.
“I budgeted for 30 of them, (so) I was way off the mark,” Ivie said. “I didn’t know how often people would be using our services, or how much Natrona County would bring in.”
Because other counties are using the autopsy services Fremont County now provides, Commissioner Mike Jones asked Ivie to approach the State Loan and Investment Board to see if they would help cover some equipment purchases for the new building the county recently bought to house the coroner’s office.
“This benefits the state, because we’re already doing autopsies for several counties,” Jones said. “I think we should ask them … if they can help us pay for some of the equipment (so) we’re not using all our funds on it.”
Ivie estimated that the 48 autopsies her office conducted for other counties this year would bring in more than $99,000 – 143 percent of the revenue budgeted for that line item.
She hopes to use some of that extra revenue to “offset the overage” that Fremont County’s forensic pathologist line item experienced due to the unanticipated increase in contractual autopsies conducted this year.
“I anticipate being approximately $20,000 over budget at the end of the fiscal year, and that’s due to that line item – that payment,” Ivie said.
Calls for service
So far this year, the Fremont County Coroner’s Office has responded to 66 calls for services – up from 75 last year at this point.
Case numbers are down, too, she said, with 10 accidental deaths so far this year compared to eight at this point in 2024; three homicides so far this year compared to seven at the same point in 2024; and no suicides so far this year – a number Ivie called “terrific,” especially when compared to the five suicides that were recorded at this point in 2024.
One case has been ruled undetermined so far this year, Ivie said – the same number recorded at this point in 2024.
Four fatalities have involved vehicles so far this year, Ivie said, but she noted that her office still has six cases pending, and four of those are expected to be accidental as well.
She anticipates that another one of those pending cases will be a “kratom death.”
“We are seeing an uptick in what you can buy at vape stores, like kratom,” Ivie said. “You can buy it in quantity at any of our vape stores. It comes in liquid, powder, you can smoke it, you can inhale it, you can drink it. And (it’s) completely legal. …
“I am concerned about that because it is so readily available and we have been seeing it more at the homes and the scenes that we go to. Even if it’s not a kratom-related death, it seems to be more prevalent in homes.”
For more information, call the Fremont County Coroner’s Office at (307) 856-7150.