AbleChild Suggests Historic Coroner Reform Law After Butler Assassination Attempt, Patel–Fitton Clash

Republished with permission from AbleChild.

The recent dispute between FBI Director Kash Patel and Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch about the information provided in the embarrassingly overly redacted FOIA related documents reminds AbleChild of many of the incompetent agencies that had its hands in the investigation of the attempted assassination of President Donald J. Trump in Butler, PA in July of 2024, beginning with the Coroner of Butler County, William F. Young III.

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AbleChild has been following the “investigation” of the attempted assassination in the hope of obtaining information about the mental health of the shooter involved. Unfortunately, the problems with the physical evidence in this case make it difficult to reliably report whether the alleged shooter had been taking any prescription drugs at the time of the shooting and as reported in several earlier articles, it is impossible to provide any written documentation about how the shooter’s body was identified and that responsibility lies squarely with the Butler County coroner.

William F. Young III, the Butler County coroner at the time of the shooting, is statutorily required to follow specific procedures in death investigations. For example, 16 P.S.C.A. 13915 “The coroner shall safely keep in the coroner’s charge: (1) the personal effects and property to have been on or about the person at the time of death…”

The first problem lies with coroner Young not viewing the alleged shooter’s body lying on the roof of the AGR building until 6:15a.m. the following day, despite having been at the rally grounds at midnight after the shooting. Why? Moreover, based on his own report, Young was literally the last person to see the deceased body on the AGR building roof after numerous law enforcement agencies, emergency response personnel and anybody else who got access to the roof, had violated the crime scene, with one law enforcement agent literally zip tying the hands of the dead body.

Under Pennsylvania law, the coroner has the duty under 16 P.S.C.A. 13918 to: “having a view of the body shall investigate the facts and circumstances concerning a death that appears to have happened within the county…” Further, statutorily, Young was responsible for determining “the identity of the deceased and notify the next of kin of the deceased.”

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Under 16 P.S.CA. 13922 “Prohibition of Moving a body.” Coroner Young “has the jurisdiction to investigate the facts and circumstances of death, the body and the surroundings of the body shall be left untouched until either: (1) the coroner has conducted an initial investigation of the scene of death, including viewing and photographing the scene in the manner that most fully discloses how the individual died (2) the coroner directs or authorizes the touching of a body and the surroundings of a body, except as provided by law or as circumstances may require.”

By that time Young arrived at the AGR building, it is fair to say, the crime scene had been completely violated and the body handled by an unknown number of people. The question becomes: did coroner Young provide authorization for all those unknown people to handle the body? And, more importantly, what was taken from the body and crime scene by those unknown people?

In Young’s Case Summary Report the coroner writes, “the subject’s hands were zip tied behind his back by emergency personnel and pronounced deceased at 18:25 on 07/13/24 by ESU Medic Michel Vasilodiolis-Nicol…” That’s it. What about the death scene? The gun? The detonator? What was the alleged shooter wearing? Zip, Zero, Nada.

So Young ships the body of the alleged shooter, who laid on the roof all night being handled by untold number of people, to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner (ME) for autopsy. What does the ME receive from Coroner Young? You can’t make this up. According to the Body Receiving Record, the ME got clothing consisting of “shirt, belt, shoes, socks, underwear, shorts and one zip tie.”

More bizarre, the Allegheny ME writes in his official autopsy report of the alleged shooter that “the body is accompanied by a clear plastic bag containing medium length brown hair (submitted as evidence).

First, who cut the hair from the alleged shooter’s head and put it into “a clear plastic bag” along with the body? Coroner Young makes no mention of this bagged hair anywhere. And, if the ME has the body of the alleged shooter and reports in the description of the body “The head hair is brown, straight, and medium to long in length (approximately 6 to 9 inches in length)” why would the ME have need of a bag of hair of the same body? Whose hair is in the bag? Was it tested and for what?

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Then to really make this screwy, the Allegheny ME provides in his Release Receipt that he returned to the Beinhaufer Funeral Home the body of the alleged shooter and one zip tie. Why weren’t the clothing and bag of hair part of the return to the funeral home? Where are the clothes and bag of hair today?

And, finally, who got the Home Depot receipt that was reported to have been pulled from the alleged shooter’s pocket while laying on the roof of the AGR building. Remember the FBI says the shooter purchased a ladder from the Home Depot early on the morning of the shooting. Where is that receipt for a ladder that was never used and later found fifty miles from the rally? Why wasn’t the receipt collected by Coroner Young? Did Young even ask what was removed from the body? For that matter, where’s the ladder?

AbleChild could go on and on about the major physical evidence problems in this case and has in previous articles.  AbleChild can’t help but wonder if this is why the FBI refuses to release its unredacted investigation. But more than that, the obvious actions, and lack thereof, by the Butler County Coroner, William Young III, need to be investigated.

And AbleChild would go one step further and suggest that legislation needs to be adopted in Pennsylvania, and later all fifty states, that make coroners responsible for willful/neglectful failure to carry out statutory mandates.

The attached suggested legislation should be considered immediately by the Pennsylvania Legislature to ensure death scene reports are properly carried out and state law is performed by medically qualified employees. The point of the coroner’s job is to ensure that the initial case report will hold up in a court of law in assisting in determining identity of the deceased, and exact cause and legal manner of death. They are the legal voice of the deceased.

Remember Allegheny County ME Ariel Goldschmidt testified before Congress that he had no part in any actions prior to the body being transported to his office in Pittsburgh, leaving any investigation of the body on the AGR roof to then Coroner Young.

AbleChild argues that William Young’s death investigation is so flawed it’s useless and, while Young is no longer Butler County coroner, he has some explaining to do and the State needs to enact laws that hold its coroners personally responsible for blatant incompetence.

AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization that has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.

What you can do.  Sign the Petition calling for federal hearings!

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