Idaho murders: Coroner under fire for dismissing potential clues from toxicology tests
Heather Hunter
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A physician and board-certified forensic pathologist is disputing the claims of the Moscow, Idaho, coroner working on the case of the brutal Nov. 13 slayings of four University of Idaho students that the toxicology tests are not relevant to the case.
“From the toxicology, you could learn a great deal about where the decedents were during the hours before their death, what, if any, drugs they were taking, their state of mind. Did they take drugs that could have caused them to sleep and not wake during the encounter?” Dr. Michael Baden told Fox News Digital.
Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt this week dismissed the toxicology findings as being useful to provide any new clues and leads for investigators.
“They can be related to cause or manner of death, but they are not in this case,” Mabbutt said of the tests that are being done by the Spokane Medical Examiner’s Office.
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The toxicology tests would determine whether alcohol or drugs were in the system of the stabbed university students.
Baden, who has been called as an expert witness in many high-profile cases, is critical of Mabbutt’s analysis because she is a coroner and an attorney but not a medical doctor. He believes the toxicology report could provide useful insights.
“These days, there are literally hundreds of drugs looked for in toxicology that are new and different because of all the fentanyl and methamphetamine-like drugs coming from different sources. Certain drugs are used in Washington versus Idaho, and this could offer clues about where they were or who they were with before they died,” he said.
“Maybe one of the victims had their food spiked. This would be a significant piece of evidence,” he said.
Other law enforcement experts agree that alcohol and other substances could provide many clues to what might have happened that night.
“I’d put my money on there being alcohol in all four victims’ systems. … What conclusions can you draw from that?” retired Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman told Fox News Digital.
Fuhrman also dismissed the coroner’s analysis: “She should stop talking. She has never done an autopsy. She doesn’t understand the value of the autopsy information to police.”
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The coroner released autopsy results showing how the four students were stabbed to death multiple times.
“The fatal ones were to the chest area or the upper body area,” said Mabbutt in a NewsNation interview. She said, “It has to be somebody that’s pretty angry in order to stab four people to death.”
This week marked more than one month since Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin, and Xana Kernodle were killed in the early morning hours on Nov. 13.
The coroner is awaiting the full reports with the toxicology results from the lab, which take three to eight weeks to be analyzed.