Valley County coroner reports 98 county deaths in 2024, rising drug and vehicle-related fatalities among youngest victims

Valley County Coroner Scott Carter delivered his 2024 annual report to the Board of County Commissioners on Feb. 18, reporting that county records show 98 deaths occurred in Valley County in 2024 and that 48 of those were reported to the coroner’s office by hospitals or law enforcement. "Best we can tell with bridal records is we had 98 deaths that occurred in Valley County," Carter said.

Carter said he accepted jurisdiction in 43 of the 48 referred deaths, released five as non-jurisdictional because they were certified by a physician as natural deaths, and that 16 of the accepted cases received autopsies. Of the 43 jurisdictional deaths, 23 were natural, 15 accidental, one suicide and one homicide; two remained classified as undetermined and one pending case (from a December death) was awaiting laboratory results.

The coroner highlighted drug-related deaths as a troubling trend, particularly among younger people. "The fentanyl overdose and opioid overdose is basically, dropping. What's alarming is all those that are dying of those are younger. Younger, younger, younger, younger every year," Carter said. He additionally reported local detection of carfentanil — a synthetic opioid he described as "a hundred times stronger than fentanyl" — and said illicit mixes involving carfentanil, fentanyl, methamphetamine and heroin are appearing in the region.

Carter said many motor-vehicle fatalities involved alcohol or illicit drugs and that he was seeing almost no seat-belt use in many of the crashes: "Almost well, all all of them don't have seat belts. None of them wear seat belts. Don't know why." He told commissioners two recent crashes north of Cascade involved multiple vehicles and a construction worker pulling a gravel trailer, and described a pattern of increased highway crashes compared with earlier years.

On manners of death in autopsied cases, Carter said that among the 16 exams completed in 2024 seven were accidental, five natural, two undetermined, one homicide and one pending. He described natural deaths as led by cardiac disease and said diabetes-related deaths were rising. Carter also said plane and snowmobile crashes continued to account for several fatalities in the backcountry; toxicology from those cases frequently showed alcohol, sometimes at high levels.

Carter described a recent change to Idaho’s death-registration reporting, implemented July 1, which he said has not fully stabilized: "We changed to a new supposed to be better, more efficient reporting system ... it's not fully ... there's still a few bugs to work out. It's not fully reported yet." He credited a National Institutes of Health grant for helping cover genetic testing of cold cases and undetermined deaths.

On operational matters, Carter said the coroner’s office reviewed 20 cremation permits in the quarter and completed seven death certificates; he described coordination with Valley County Sheriff’s Office, McCall Police and Idaho State Police for investigative referrals. He also summarized costs for autopsies and toxicology testing and noted increases in lab fees.

Commissioners asked for follow-up information on crash trends and county transportation counts; Carter suggested the road department’s vehicle-count data would be useful to compare with crash locations. He said he will continue quarterly reporting to the commission.

Ending: Carter said he would provide printed copies of the full annual and quarterly reports to commissioners and planned to return next quarter with updated figures. "I decided just to go ahead and do a quarterly report ... hopefully it'll give you kind of just a real brief idea of what's happened," he said.