Utah police say autopsy backlog is causing investigation delay
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Bodies being processed through the new State Crime Lab in Taylorsville are held in one of two large coolers on Thursday, May 1, 2017. Housing the Utah State Medical Examiner's Office and the Department of Agriculture the new building features a ballistics firing range, vehicle processing bays, trace evidence labs, chemistry labs and a robotic DNA testing lab.
Farmington, Utah • Police say an investigation into the death of a 20-year-old man at a Farmington jail is still open nearly 16 months later because of a backlog of cases at the Utah Medical Examiner's Office.
The Standard-Examiner reports the Unified Police Department was called to conduct an independent investigation after Dominic Landreth died in the Davis County Jail in August 2016.
Police Sgt. Tim Duran says the death appears to be self-inflicted, but they require a medical examiner's report and toxicology results for any unattended jail deaths. Landreth was one of the four inmates who died at the jail over a two-month period last year.
Medical examiner's office officials say progress was being made on the backlog, but factors like employee turnover and increased opioid-related deaths were causing delays.
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