Allen Hodges sits at his desk, next to framed photos of his daughter, Kylie. (Kyle Pfannenstiel / Idaho Capital Sun)
Allen Hodges claimed that the night his daughter died, he was unaware of the law.
On December 19, 2020, he went into the bathroom to check on Kylie, 16, who was taking a bath, and discovered her unresponsive.
He called 911 and began CPR. But he quickly realized she’d had a tonic seizure, a more severe type that had been affecting Kylie, who had epilepsy.
Paramedics arrived. They attempted to save her and then asked if they should continue. Hodges said they should not.
Then a local sheriff’s deputy led him out of his Caldwell home, which appeared to be being treated as a crime scene despite the fact that he had informed first responders about his daughter’s epilepsy.
After Kylie was declared dead, Hodges dressed her and drove her to a funeral home, he recalled recently.
“I didn’t even have a chance to grieve that night,” Hodges said in an interview while sitting in his office with a photo of his daughter and a flower she drew on his whiteboard.
Worried that naked photos of his deceased daughter would be made public after a watchdog report discovered that corner records are not confidential, Hodges introduced a bill in the Legislature this year to clarify privacy protections for death investigation records. The bill, introduced late in the legislative session, stalled and did not pass.
However, Sen. Melissa Wintrow, a Democratic state legislator from Boise who led that bill as well as a separate successful coroner reform law, has stated that she intends to reintroduce the privacy bill next year. She is working with local coroners on additional fixes, as she did last year.
Years after Kylie’s death, Hodges says he is fighting for his daughter’s dignity and other parents’ rights as he seeks reforms to Idaho’s troubled coroner system in court and through the Legislature. He described his daughter’s death investigation in interviews with the Idaho Capital Sun and in recent lawsuits against Canyon County officials.
Officials won’t share, or delete photos, Canyon County prosecutor says
In the lawsuits, in which he is representing himself, Hodges has asked courts to order local officials to destroy and return what he claims are unwarranted, nude photos of his deceased daughter, as well as to compensate him for civil rights violations.
“People should be aware that the process does not follow a level playing field across counties. “And state legislators must fix the broken system,” he added.
Canyon County officials say an investigation into his daughter’s death, which occurred while no doctor was present, is warranted. Officials say they will not release photos from the death investigation, but they will not destroy them.
“The records with which Mr. Hodges is concerned are protected and will not be disclosed publicly,” Canyon County Prosecuting Attorney Christopher Boyd stated in a letter to the Sun in July. “Unattended death reports are not destroyed unless authorized by law and are the property of the County’s investigatory law enforcement agencies.” Thus, any requests to destroy investigatory records without legal authority will be denied, and the records will be preserved.”
The recent reform of Idaho’s coroner system was prompted by a watchdog report, which found that state law does not prohibit coroners from sharing information from death investigations. It also suggested that lawmakers take up the issue to “reduce the possibility of impeding a criminal investigation” and respect families’ privacy.
Kylie’s death was declared natural, according to her death certificate.
As lawmakers worked to reform Idaho’s coroner system, Hodges shared the story of his daughter’s death
Coroners in Idaho are elected at the county level, according to the state constitution.
This spring, following a critical watchdog report by the Office of Performance Evaluations in 2024 that found inconsistencies in death investigations across Idaho due to a lack of guidance in state law, the Idaho Legislature passed a bill clarifying the roles of coroners and law enforcement in death investigations.
During the Idaho Senate debate, Wintrow described the bill as “a long time coming.” She referenced decades of failed attempts to reform Idaho’s coroner system, as detailed in a ProPublica investigation last year.
In February, when the bill was still in its early stages, Hodges testified before a legislative committee about his daughter’s death and the need for privacy protections for coroner records.
“After I performed all of the CPR and informed him of her epilepsy, the deputy coroner arrived on the scene and the detective seized her medication. They told me, ‘You didn’t do anything wrong, but that deputy is going to escort you outside of your house, and this has turned into a crime scene,'” Hodges, president of the Idaho Trucking Association but speaking as a parent, told lawmakers.
“They took nude photos of my daughter,” he told the committee. “I have no control over those photographs at all — because there’s no law in Idaho.”
In 2004, the United States Supreme Court ruled that autopsy images could not be made public. According to the watchdog report, the information coroners gather during death investigations “is not considered confidential.”
The Office of Performance Evaluations’ report recommended that the Legislature consider updating state law “to include regulations on the confidentiality of information gathered by coroners in a death investigation”
Without a clear understanding of confidentiality requirements, “each coroner just kind of does their own thing,” said Office of Performance Evaluations Director Ryan Langrill to the Sun.
“My reading of the law is that there are no exemptions whatsoever,” he said, “except for records that are protected through some secondary law,” such as privacy protections for personnel or police records.
Last month, as law enforcement released massive amounts of information from the investigation into a quadruple murder in Moscow, KTVB published blurred photos from the crime scene obtained through a public records request from local police. According to the Spokesman-Review, the Boise-based TV station was the only Idaho news outlet to publish the photos, and families were not notified before their release.
KTVB could not immediately be reached for comment.
Torey Danner, President of the Idaho State Association of County Coroners, stated that Idaho has few public record protections for coroner records. But he believes that should change.
“Unfortunately, I believe that certain things should not be made public. “One family’s tragedy should not be another family’s entertainment,” said Danner, who also serves as the coroner for Bannock County.
Late in the legislative session this year, Wintrow introduced Senate Bill 1135, which sought to address Hodges’ privacy concerns. However, she quickly removed the bill from consideration this year, realizing it went too far in concealing coroner records, after an investigative journalist from ProPublica contacted her for a story on it.
In late 2024, ProPublica reported on flaws in Idaho’s coroner system. In March, the investigative news organization reported that the privacy protection bill could “shield from public view records that ProPublica relied on in its coverage.”
“When you’re drafting a bill right in legislative session, when you’re being pulled in 1,000 directions, you could try to write something, and that’s what we did,” said Wintrow, a Boise Democrat who co-chairs the state’s Legislative Oversight Committee, which ordered the state’s coroner system watchdog report.
However, she quickly realized that it would result in more private records than she wanted. “So that’s why I put the brakes on and said, ‘No, we don’t do bad legislation,'” Wintrow told the press.
She believes the solution would be to treat coroner records as law enforcement records under the state’s Public Records Act, allowing journalists to access some but not all coroner records.
Hodges says he worries every day that pictures of his daughter will end up online.
“Is that fair to a parent?” he asked The Sun.
Online coroner training included naked photos of dead bodies. It is no longer publicly available.
In April, before Hodges requested that Canyon County delete photos of his daughter, he discovered photos of naked and partially dressed dead people on the Idaho Association of Counties’ website. The training on death investigation photography, which is no longer available, credited Ada County with the presentation.
When the Idaho Capital Sun contacted Ada County Coroner Rich Riffle about the photos in May, he said in an email that he would respond right away and that he had not reviewed the presentation in advance. He stated that the presentation was intended for professional use rather than for the general public.
Kelli Brassfield, the Association of Counties’ policy adviser, told the Sun in an email that the training was only available to coroners.
Ada County does not seek permission from families before using materials in presentations or active cases, according to Coroner Riffle.
“The great care taken is in the redaction of the photographs - to include such things as any family photos on a wall in the background,” said the journalist. “… Even with this due diligence in redactions, our presenters make it clear right away that the attendees will see pictures that may be disturbing, and that they are local cases, so there is a chance that someone will recognize the case even with all of the details of any potential identifying images carefully redacted.
The Sun reviewed images from the training, which showed two unredacted nude bodies. A female with exposed breasts had a block box covering her eyes. Photos of a male fully undressed on a gurney did not appear to have been redacted.
In May, Hodges asked Canyon County officials to remove photos of his daughter.
Boyd, the local prosecutor, told Hodges that when he spoke with Canyon County Coroner Jennifer Crawford, she informed him that “her process would never be to release photos of any investigation under the Public Records Act.”
“In my discussion with the Coroner, she has assured me that she has not disclosed anything of a sensitive nature, including photos which are not required by law,” Boyd wrote to Hodges, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Sun through a public records request. “I understand you have requested that the photos from the autopsy be provided to you and that the Coroner not keep any of the images. I will contact her and forward your request.
“Again, I am sorry for your loss and hope that the legislative changes you are requesting are ultimately adopted,” Boyd wrote at the end of the letter.
In June, Hodges filed a tort claim with the county, which is the first step toward a lawsuit. Then he sued Canyon County law enforcement and coroner officials in state and federal court. He is legally representing himself in the lawsuits.
Working with coroners and law enforcement, Idaho lawmakers are working toward more coroner legislation. But funding is a barrier.
Idaho’s new law clarifying death investigation roles only addressed some of the litany of recommendations in the watchdog report.
The report, nearly 100 pages, also found:
Idaho had the lowest autopsy rate in the nation for deaths of children and homicides, and the third lowest rate for death autopsies overall.
It’s unclear if coroners are even fulfilling the 24-hours of training required every two years.
State expenses for coroner offices was “a minor fraction of overall county budgets,” and many coroner offices’ ability to operate is hampered by lacking “essential resources and equipment.”
In the months since the legislative session ended in the spring, Wintrow and other state lawmakers have been meeting with coroners and law enforcement as part of a work group to draft future legislation. According to Boise State Public Radio, one proposal under consideration by the group is to require autopsies for children.
However, Wintrow believes the most difficult challenge in addressing more of the watchdog report’s findings is determining how to better fund coroner offices. Wintrow believes the Legislature can help smaller counties in this situation.
But she wishes the Legislature hadn’t reduced the state’s revenue so dramatically this year, when lawmakers approved $400 million in tax cuts and $50 million in tax credits for parents who send their children to private schools.
“That has put us in a pickle,” Wintrow explained in July.
Last month, Idaho Gov. Brad Little directed all state government agencies other than public schools to reduce their mid-year budgets by 3% in anticipation of a $80 million projected budget shortfall. However, the budget shortfall estimate failed to account for tax cuts included in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which could cost Idaho an additional $167 million to implement, according to the Sun.
According to a follow-up survey conducted this year by the state watchdog agency, the Office of Performance Evaluations, some coroners claim that “the lack of dedicated funding prevents them from obtaining necessary equipment, securing full-time staff, and increasing autopsy capacity.”
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“The coroner system in Idaho is broken and a joke,” one unidentified coroner responded to the survey.
According to ProPublica, this is part of a trend among local coroners who want the state to intervene.
Lawsuit claims death investigation wasn’t warranted. Canyon County Prosecutor disputes that.
In his lawsuit in state court, Hodges asked the court to order government agencies to destroy any nude or graphic photos of his dead daughter and return the original photos to family, alleging that the photos were obtained without legal justification.
In his federal lawsuit, he alleges a slew of civil rights violations — many of which revolve around his claim that the county’s investigation into his daughter’s death was not legally justified.
In his state court lawsuit, Hodges cites two Idaho laws as recognizing “that not all deaths require a law enforcement response, particularly when there is no indication of foul play and the medical circumstances are understood.”
“In the case of my daughter, who had a known medical disease and had recently been seen by her physician, these protections were disregarded,” Hodges argues in his legal complaint. “Despite her established medical condition and the presence of a treating physician who could have certified her death, no effort was made to contact her doctor. Instead, the authorities proceeded with a criminal investigation, treating the scene as suspicious without medical justification.”
Citing a report from paramedics, Hodges told the Sun paramedics talked with a doctor about Kylie’s care while they were trying to resuscitate her. In his lawsuit, he claims coroner staff failed to apply an exemption in Idaho law that he claims doesn’t require investigations into children’s deaths if they have a known medical condition.
Asked about Hodges’ lawsuits, Canyon County spokesperson Aaron Williams denied wrongdoing or disclosing any confidential information, but declined to comment more on the issues raised in the lawsuits.
“Canyon County follows any and all current laws regarding public record requests,” he said.
Boyd previously has said a law enforcement investigation into Hodges’ daughter’s death was warranted.
In his May letter to Hodges, Boyd cited an Idaho law that requires coroners refer death investigations to local law enforcement “if a death occurs that is not attended by a physician and the cause of death cannot be certified by a physician.”
“In this matter, EMT’s were called to the scene to assist in attempts at resuscitation,” Boyd wrote. “Under the law, the presence of EMTs does not equate to a death occurring in the presence of a physician and therefore an investigation was warranted.”
Looking back on the night his daughter died, Hodges said he has one regret.
“It may sound incorrect, but because after what I went through, I wish I’d never called for help,” he said. “If I couldn’t have saved her on my own, we could’ve just buried her on the property and had the pastor come over and had a ceremony.”
He doesn’t want other parents to go through what he did.
“Being investigated as a suspect or whatever — that, that sticks with you,” he said.
