He Was Accused of Killing His Wife. Idahos Coroner System Let Clues Vanish After a Previous Wifes Death.
by Audrey Dutton ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week. Clayton Strong pulled up to a tiny hospital in Idaho, walked through the emergency room doors and told a clerk that his wifes body was outside in their SUV.A sheriffs deputy was at the hospital talking to Strong by the time the coroner arrived. This was an unattended death: one where no doctor could attest to a medical reason for the persons demise. That made it the coroners job to determine how and why she died.Strong, a stocky man with white hair and bushy eyebrows, explained that he and his wife lived in an RV park on the edge of the woods nearby. He said his wife had been bedridden for years with Parkinsons disease. That morning shed woken up and asked for peanut butter and water, Strong told the deputy. He found her dead some time later.The coroner looked over Betty Strongs body. It was thin and frail. He didnt see a reason to suspect anything other than a natural death for this 75-year-old woman. The sheriffs deputy seemed to be satisfied with the explanation too. So, the coroner ruled that Betty Strong died around 8:40 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2016, from complications of Parkinsons, and he signed off on allowing cremation of her body.Less than five years later, Clayton Strongs next wife turned up dead, too: shot in the chest in Texas.It turns out that both marriages had a history of domestic unrest, with visits from police who documented threats to each womans safety.Its impossible to know whether a different approach to investigating Betty Strongs death would have uncovered foul play. What is certain is that clues and evidence in the case were lost forever and Idahos system for death investigation let it happen.Family members of both women believe a more thorough investigation of the death in Idaho might have saved the life of Clayton Strongs next wife in Texas.Someone shows up with a dead body and just says they died of natural causes, said Amy Belanger, one of Betty Strongs children. I mean, really, do you just take their word for it?The answer is no, according to five of six national death investigation experts ProPublica consulted. They said the coroner should have obtained medical records to confirm Betty Strong was diagnosed with Parkinsons, examined the trailer where her husband said she died, or both.You can think of all sorts of scenarios criminal, accidental or natural that could have occurred there, said Jennifer Snippen, a death investigator, educator and consultant in Oregon. But my argument is, if you dont go to the scene and you dont look at the medical records, you just dont know.Most of the county coroners in Idaho are part-time elected officials with tiny budgets and no oversight or state funding to support their work. The national experts said that kind of system is more prone to cursory investigations like the one into Betty Strongs death.The failure to reform death investigations in Idaho has raised alarms for more than 70 years, according to current and former Idaho coroners and previous ProPublica reporting.A national magazine called Idaho the best place in the nation for a criminal to get away with murder in the literal sense because of the states antiquated county coroners system, the Idaho Statesman newspaper reported in 1951.Asked whether murderers have escaped prosecution in Idahos coroner system, Rich Riffle, coroner for the county that includes Boise, said, My humble opinion? Yes. That almost happened in 2019 when one inexperienced Idaho coroner decided to take the word of Chad Daybell that his wife, Tammy Daybell, had died in her sleep after chronic health problems, vomiting and a cough. Her body was later exhumed after his next wifes children went missing. An autopsy by the Utah medical examiners office found what medical records would have shown, had the Idaho coroner requested them: Tammy Daybell was healthy. A jury convicted Chad Daybell of murdering her by asphyxiation and of killing his next wifes two youngest children. The case is under appeal.At trial, coroner Brenda Dye said she had regrets. Her voice shaking, Dye told the court she would have ordered an autopsy if shed known better, but at that time, with my limited training and being new, I did the best I could. She declined ProPublicas interview request, citing the cases effect on her mental health. The community set up a memorial to two children who Chad Daybell was convicted of murdering; he was also convicted of killing his previous wife Tammy. The coroner originally believed Chad Daybell when he said that Tammy had died in her sleep. (John Roark/Post Register via AP) Idaho isnt the only place where death investigations fall short. Because there is no uniform federal system, the rigor with which your death is investigated depends on where you die. Other states lack enough forensic pathologists to do autopsies. And many local systems like Idaho Countys are squeezed for money.But even among its short-staffed, underfunded peers, Idaho stands out. One measure is the states autopsy rate: third-lowest for autopsies in all deaths, last in the nation for autopsies in known cases of homicide.Gov. Brad Little said in January that he would support more state resources to help Idahos coroners do their jobs. But he never got the chance; coroner-related bills passed by the Idaho Legislature this year contained no funding or other assistance for coroners and death investigations.So for now, each of Idahos 44 coroners will bear costs that other states help cover: driving a body hundreds of miles to an autopsy; paying for some of those autopsies; or trying to recruit one more person to join Idahos statewide forensic pathology workforce of three.If you dont care enough about how death investigations are done in your jurisdiction to invest in the people doing it, to provide them with the resources or to have high enough standards for the people that you hire to do this, youre going to get what you get, what you accept, said Snippen. Youre going to get what you allow to happen.Florida, 2010-2015Betty Brock was a mother of seven who enjoyed singing and art, long bicycle rides, organizing family photos and researching her ancestry.She was caring for her terminally ill husband in 2010 when Clayton Strong befriended her on the internet, according to Belanger, her daughter. Strong claimed to be basically destitute and living in his car, a backstory that appealed to a woman with a soft spot for taking in wounded people and trying to heal them with love, Belanger said.Strong drove hundreds of miles from Southwest Florida and showed up at the Brocks property in the Florida panhandle. They agreed he could sleep in his car there as long as he helped with caregiving and housework. Soon he was sleeping in an outbuilding on the property, then in the house.Bettys children were puzzled as this newcomer became a fixture in their mothers life. They wanted to give Strong a chance, but they soon grew suspicious.Betty Brocks husband died in August 2010. By January, she was Betty Strong.After their courthouse marriage, Clayton Strong used their now-shared funds to buy a Ford truck and an Airstream trailer and took his bride on the road, Belanger said. The couple visited national parks that Betty had always wanted to see. They camped and hiked their way across the continent. They bought mining claims and panned for gold in the remote Idaho wilderness. Betty and Clayton Strong. Bettys children say Clayton isolated her, threatened them when they tried to visit her, kept her from seeing her doctor, then took her to Idaho, where she died. (Courtesy of Amy Belanger) After that honeymoon, the walls around Betty Strong grew impenetrable, her children said. According to what two of her children told ProPublica and to statements two others made to police, Clayton became the gatekeeper of all communication with their mother, and he padlocked the doors of their Florida home and held the key.The last time Betty Strong saw her primary care doctor in Florida was in May 2013, according to records her son obtained after the death. Before that, she hadnt been in since 2010, the year Clayton Strong entered her life. The notes from the 2013 checkup show health issues common in older adults but no Parkinsons diagnosis, and neither Parkinsons nor other neurodegenerative diseases were listed in the family history section.The children watched from afar as the marriage devolved over the next two years. Between January 2014 and February 2015, police went to the couples residence for welfare checks and domestic disturbances at least six times, according to police reports that Belanger provided to ProPublica. Her children told police that Clayton Strong threatened to shoot them if they set foot on the property, threatened to hurt their mother if they didnt back off, and prevented her from seeing a doctor.In the first of those police visits, in January 2014, the records show that Belangers sister, who lived nearby, called the sheriff while standing outside the Strong residence, a brown house surrounded by oak trees and pines on a winding country road. A deputy arrived to find Belangers sister and Clayton Strong in a stalemate, then talked to everyone outside, according to a sheriffs office report. The deputy then watched as Betty Strong turned to her husband to ask him for permission to hug her daughter, and Clayton Strong removed a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the porch entrance gate so Betty could go in the yard for the hug.The report says the deputy made a referral to Florida Department of Children and Families, the agency that investigates possible abuse of vulnerable adults, and that the department opened a case.A similar scene played out when one of Betty Strongs sons went to the house to check on her in February 2015. For two years, Clayton Strong turned the son away when he tried to visit, and this time Strong threatened to shoot him with a gun if he did not leave, the son told a sheriffs deputy. Clayton Strong denied that, the deputys report says.The deputy found Betty Strong alone on a bed in an RV parked behind the home, the report says. She said she had Parkinsons disease and couldnt get around well. Clayton wasnt holding her against her will, she told the deputy, but she couldnt take care of herself without him.She had a walkie-talkie. The deputy asked: Is Clayton using that radio and telling you what to say? Betty answered no while nodding her head yes. It was a chilly afternoon, and the deputy noticed Betty had a blanket but no heater. Bettys demeanor, living conditions, and the controlling behavior by Clayton warranted a referral to the Florida Department of Children and Families, the deputy wrote.Asked for the outcome of that referral, a spokesperson told ProPublica the department investigates all allegations of abuse, neglect, or exploitation but that records of those investigations are confidential under state law.Days after the referral in February 2015, police were again dispatched to the Florida home. This time, it wasnt one of Betty Strongs children who called; it was someone from adult protective services in need of police backup. According to the dispatch log, the worker said Clayton Strong has threatened before to pull a gun on her and is very anti-law enforcement.The couple left town a month later. Betty Strongs children never heard from her again. Betty Strong early in her relationship with Clayton Strong. Within a few years of this trip, Clayton told authorities shed died of Parkinsons, but her children say she never had the disease. (Courtesy of Amy Belanger) Idaho, December 2016By the time Betty Strong died in Idaho County in December 2016, she hadnt been seen in Florida in 21 months.Idaho Countys elected coroner, Cody Funke, had been in the job about as long.He knew the county well. Its vast forests, mountains and meadows stretch across more land than Massachusetts. Rugged and remote, it attracts people who want to be left alone and who distrust both government and conventional medicine. Funke, pronounced funk, was in his late 20s in 2014 when he learned his part-time job at a funeral home was being eliminated. His boss asked: Had he considered running for coroner? The coroner at the time was retiring and urged Funke to do it. So did Funkes boss from his other part-time job, as an EMT. What sealed the deal for Funke: As coroner, he would get health insurance.Funke started the job with a feeling of good luck, godspeed, youre gonna need it. There was no apprenticeship or ride-along to watch seasoned pros, like hed gotten when he trained to be an EMT. There was a training conference he attended in Las Vegas before taking office, and Funke received more than double the 24 hours of coroner education required by Idaho law. Even so, he isnt sure it was enough to prepare him. Funke learned on his first day that he wasnt getting a vehicle to move bodies from a death scene. If the local funeral homes vehicle was occupied, Funke had to use his family truck. A year after Betty Strongs death, the county commission got the coroner a vehicle: a pickup truck the sheriffs office didnt need anymore.The office he inherited also had no camera, and the county hadnt budgeted to give him one. Hed have to use his phone to take pictures of bodies and death scenes.There was no morgue.The Idaho County coroners office didnt even have an actual office.Funkes predecessors kept their files on paper, at home, he learned. The previous coroners house had flooded, so when Funke took over, all that remained fit in two manila folders.The coroners entire budget this year is $85,651. By comparison, coroners offices serving small populations had an average budget of $280,000 in 2018, according to a national study.Paid $13,000 a year, Funke is on call 24 hours a day and, last year, investigated and ruled on 71 deaths, about one every five days. Papers on an additional 102 deaths of people under a doctors care came through needing his signature for cremation.Funke does the coroner work on top of a full-time job. When a call comes in during business hours, he dips out to go to a death scene. If someone dies at dinnertime, he might not see his family until morning.He must decide with each death what the circumstances require: a simple phone call; an all-out investigation with autopsy, witness interviews, tissue samples and more; or something in the middle.To examine a death scene, Funke might have to drive three hours or longer each way. Whenever he orders an autopsy, Funke or his deputies have to take the body to the nearest autopsy center, a trip that takes a full day and usually demands an overnight stay. His current budget can cover 10 autopsies a year. Cody Funke, the Idaho County coroner, also worked full time as a city wastewater treatment operator. He now works for the state prison system while remaining the coroner. (Liesbeth Powers for ProPublica) In those first years as coroner, Funke often leaned on police.Funke found it strange that Clayton Strong had loaded his wifes body into their SUV and driven to the hospital. Most people call 911 to report a death and wait for help to arrive, Funke said. But Strong offered an explanation that seemed to satisfy the sheriffs deputy: He didnt know many people in town and wasnt sure what to do.Strong had said his wife hadnt seen a doctor because she stuck to homeopathic remedies. Thats not unusual for Funke to hear. The widower gave Funke the impression a coroner and sheriffs deputy wouldnt be welcome inside the trailer where she died. Thats not so outside the norm for Idaho County either, Funke said.Betty Strongs death looked like an easy call. So Funke helped move her body to a cot to be taken from the hospital to a local funeral home.According to a later report from the sheriffs office, Clayton Strong showed up at the funeral home that day, said he wanted her cremated and paid $2,310 in cash. The way Funke heard it from a funeral home employee a few days later, Strong paid in $100 bills out of a lunch box.The detail struck Funke as peculiar. But he let it go.Florida, 2017The couples Airstream trailer showed up one day in January 2017, parked outside their house in Florida. A neighbor called Amy Belanger with the news, and she dispatched her brother, Daniel, who lived nearby. Theyd spent almost two years fearing the worst.The only person at the house was Clayton Strong.The familys matriarch had died a few weeks ago in Harpster, Idaho, Strong said. Then he told his son-in-law to get off the property.Amy Belanger started making calls the next day. One of the first people she reached was Funke, the county coroner. She was perplexed, she said. Why hadnt anyone called her or her siblings? Why didnt he question whether Betty Strong had actually succumbed to a disease or if something else had killed her? Belanger told Funke about the history of police calls in Florida and concerns about their mothers safety.Funke thought back to what hed heard from the funeral home. A lunch box of cash for a cremation? That image never sat quite right. Now he had solid ground for suspicion. Funke told Belanger hed talk to the county prosecutor and see what could be done. The prosecutor and the sheriffs office initially told Belanger they had opened a homicide investigation, according to a detailed timeline she created at the time. But the death scene the Strongs trailer was long gone, the body cremated. The sheriffs investigator and prosecutor ultimately didnt seem to think there was enough evidence for a homicide investigation, Funke told ProPublica. (The prosecutor and sheriffs investigator did not return phone calls, emails or certified letters from ProPublica requesting comment on their decisions following Betty Strongs death.)Notes from Belangers timeline quote a Florida detective saying he was sorry the death had occurred outside his jurisdiction. He explained to her that in Florida, deputies would have had the medical examiners office verify medical records and take a blood sample.The year Betty Strong died, 20% of natural deaths investigated by a medical examiner in the part of Florida where she had lived underwent autopsies before the examiner decided the cause of death was natural. About 65% of all deaths taken in by Floridas medical examiner that year were autopsied. Both numbers dwarf Idahos coroner autopsy rates.Its not just Florida. Many states have more sophisticated systems for investigating deaths than Idahos. In much of the country, centralized state medical examiner offices oversee all death investigations or provide a backstop to elected coroners in each county. Idahos rural neighbor Montana has a hybrid system of medical examiners and coroners, supported by a coroner liaison who works with death investigators to make the process more consistent statewide. And next door in Wyoming, a state board sets rules for coroners to follow. The rules spell out what each death investigation should include: scene investigation, toxicology sample, DNA sample, photographs, external examination of the body and an inventory of property, evidence and medications.Jennifer Snippen, the death investigator in Oregon, was one of the experts who drafted the National Institute of Justices 2024 death-scene investigation guidebook.She said death investigations are more likely to be thorough when states and counties give their investigators enough funding and education, so that they have the motivation and the ability to get to as many scenes, and get as much information about every single death, as possible.Those who study the work of coroners and medical examiners in the U.S. have learned that the deaths of elderly people are especially likely to be written off as age-related, without considering whether the person may have also been a victim of abuse or neglect.Snippens research in 2023 is one of the most recent studies to confirm that. She reviewed data from thousands of cases. The person least likely to get a scene investigation or autopsy? An elderly woman who dies at home.Lauri McGivern, a nationally recognized expert in death investigations, said national standards would have Funke verify Betty Strongs Parkinsons diagnosis and ask more questions of Clayton Strong as the sole caregiver of a vulnerable adult. McGivern, who coordinates medicolegal death investigations in Vermont, reviewed the facts that Funke was given at the time of Betty Strongs death and his subsequent report at ProPublicas request.To follow national standards, McGivern said, Funke also would have gone to the Airstream trailer or asked law enforcement to examine the death scene and report back to him.But McGivern and other experts said they understand why Funke didnt follow those national guidelines because theyve seen it happen so many times in places like rural Idaho.Hes doing what he was shown how to do, McGivern said. And probably doing the best he can, with no budget and no support and no education. When Funke took over from Idaho Countys previous coroner in 2015, there was no equipment. Over the years, Funke had to get county commissioners to approve purchases like a radio to take coroner calls. (Liesbeth Powers for ProPublica) Frustrated by how little Idaho officials knew and why they hadnt dug further into her mothers death, Amy Belanger channeled her grief into trying to find answers on her own.She followed a trail of public records left by Clayton Strong. Had he harmed other women? Had he been in a relationship with anybody who went missing? I was looking into his past to see if there was a pattern like that, Belanger said. Something she could share with officials in Idaho.Then she stumbled across a document: a recent marriage license.Three months after depositing Betty Strongs body at a hospital in Idaho, Clayton Strong wed a woman from Texas.Belanger needed to warn her.Texas, 2017-2021Shirley Weatherley had a lot in common with Betty Strong. She was a mother and grandmother. Shed been married before. She lived in a small, modest home on a large piece of land in a rural locale, where shed been caring for a terminally ill former spouse when Strong contacted her on Facebook.Theyd known each other as teenagers in Lubbock. Their reconnection after he arrived at her house in Weatherford, a suburb of Fort Worth, eventually began to worry her children.He isolated her, saidJamie Barrington, Weatherleys son with a previous husband. He wouldnt let grandkids, my brother anybodyd come over, he just kept them at arms length. Shirley Weatherley (Courtesy of Jamie Barrington) Barrington said he and other members of Weatherleys family had suspicions about Strong. Then they connected with Belanger and heard what happened in Florida and Idaho.Belanger urged the family to tell their mother everything theyd heard. She actually was pleading with us to watch out, Barrington recalled. Knowing another family was worried helped fuel Amy Belangers quest for the truth about her mothers death. Her siblings chipped in to help Belanger rent a van and drive across the country in search of clues anything that could shed light on her mothers death.Once she got to Idaho, Belanger spent more than a week investigating. She met with the coroner and sheriff. She went to the mining claims the Strongs had purchased. She stayed at the RV park where Betty Strong died and interviewed the people whod owned it in 2016; they remembered talking to each other about how hinky the death and Clayton Strongs reaction to it seemed.Back in Texas, Weatherleys family tried to warn her. When they relayed the story about Betty Strong to her, Weatherley chalked it up to a grieving family trying to cope with loss by grasping for an explanation, Barrington said. After all, Strong had a death certificate that listed natural causes. The details Barrington later learned from family members and police about his mothers life with Strong were pretty horrific, he said. Weatherley had reported that Strong threatened to kill her, but no charges were filed. Then at one point, in the midst of an argument with Strong, Weatherley lobbed the accusations about Betty Strongs death at him, Barrington said. Strong flew into a rage.Weatherley called police in July 2021. She and Strong were splitting up, and he shoved her while moving his stuff out of the house, Weatherley told the officer. Strong had hurt her in the past, so she called police to make sure it didnt happen again, the officers report says. The officer got Strongs side of the story she was running him off, but he didnt push her and stuck around until Strong agreed to leave.Police would later document finding two items in the house. The first was a copy of Weatherleys will that left everything to Strong, on which shed written VOID, the second was a digital camera hidden in their bedroom. The camera contained selfies of injuries to her face and chest and a video of Strong putting his arm around her neck as she screamed for help.Strong persuaded Weatherley to let him back into their home once more on Aug. 4, 2021, according to police records.Four days later, Weatherleys son and grandson found her body wrapped in a gray tarp near the front steps to her home. Shed been shot in the chest. Authorities matched shell casings at the scene to an AK-47-style rifle, which security footage showed Strong ditching in a shopping cart outside a Walmart.Picked up later by police in Mexico, Strong died of cardiac arrest while awaiting extradition in Weatherleys killing. Mexican police booked Clayton Strong on gun charges in 2021. After the arrest, they discovered he was a suspect in the murder of his wife in Texas. (Parker County Sheriffs Office via Facebook) TodayJamie Barrington, Shirley Weatherleys son, was reluctant at first to speak publicly about his mothers death in Texas, even years later. He agreed to talk with ProPublica, he said, because he wants Idahos coroner system to improve. He said he never imagined that a death like Betty Strongs could be ruled natural based on what a spouse told authorities.I truly believe that if there had been a proper investigation and not taking his word for it, Barrington said, that it probably would have made a big difference in what happened to Shirley Weatherley.Word of Weatherleys murder eventually reached Funke, the coroner in Idaho. He said in hindsight, Strongs actions in Idaho County seem more suspicious than they did at the time to his inexperienced eyes and ears.Now, after 10 years as coroner, I would have pushed a little bit harder to have an officer or deputy follow up or go to the RV park with him. He would have asked police to use a national database one he didnt know about at the time to find Betty Strongs family members and learn more about her background. I have trust issues after cases like this, he said.Funke said the story of Betty Strongs death needs to be told, even if it shows that he and Idaho County made mistakes, because it can help lawmakers understand what is wrong with the states system.Idahos coroners need more funding, he said, because right now theyre an afterthought in county budgets. Most counties set a coroner salary at what amounts to less than minimum wage, so its impossible for someone like Funke to be coroner without a second, full-time job.These offices should be fully staffed, he said. Maybe we have one or two people that are here full time to answer questions and respond to these calls, versus, Hey, Ive got to take time off work, boss.And he believes new coroners who lack experience should be required to learn how to work a case from start to finish before theyre called out to a death like Betty Strongs.Daniel Belanger, one of Betty Strongs children, came away from his interactions with Idaho County officials convinced that the only way deaths like his mothers will be properly investigated is through legislation forcing coroners and law enforcement agencies to change their approaches.They completely dropped the ball, he told ProPublica.Amy Belanger said her family has reclaimed very few of her mothers possessions from the Airstream trailer. Strong emptied the Florida house of family heirlooms after their mothers death, Belanger said. Most of the family photo albums her mother toiled over are gone.The brown house on the winding road in Florida is still there. Belangers memories of family cookouts and holiday gatherings linger in the house; they werent wiped away by the police visits and padlocked doors. But the family home isnt the familys anymore. Years later, it is stuck in legal limbo the deed still in the name of Clayton Strong and Shirley Weatherley, the woman he married after the death of Betty Strong.
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