FROM JP TO ME

FROM JP TO ME Can Wilco’s death investigators bridge the gap?

It has been almost a year since Williamson County hired its first deathinquest investigators. In January, four new DIIs, as they’re informally known, started working with the county’s four justices of the peace.

Three of the investigators are still on the job while one judge decided to handle cases herself. The four justices, while acknowledging any new initiative will have its challenges, have expressed both misgivings and guarded praise about the program.

Death-inquest investigators, or medicolegal investigators, have training and experience in reporting and evaluating the manner and cause of death. In many rural counties, they supplement the work of justices of the peace.

In Texas, unlike most states, the JP job has an unusual quirk. In addition to handling civil cases, marriages, Class C misdemeanors and other legal matters, the judges serve as coroners in any county that doesn’t have a medical examiner.

They respond to all unusual or suspicious deaths, accidents, suicides – almost any death that happens without a doctor present. They investigate, work with law enforcement, rule on the cause of death, communicate with families, sign death certificates and sometimes request autopsies.

Autopsy costs run $3,100 to $4,200 at the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office in Austin or an independent forensic pathology and crime lab.

In 2024, each of the four JP courts spent from $382,000 to $591,000 on autopsies.

County officials say they hope the expertise of skilled DIIs may reduce the need for autopsies as death cases mount.

40 DEATHS A WEEK BY 2030

Death duty is a big part of a JP’s job. In Wilco, it’s getting bigger. As more people move into the county, deaths increase.

Government figures show Williamson County is the 10th-fastest growing in the country, and the trend is expected to continue as more high-tech industries locate to the region, such as Samsung Austin Semiconductor in Taylor.

In 2024, Wilco averaged about 24 deaths a week. So far in 2025, the average is about 28 deaths a week, according to county spokeswoman Connie Odom.

In 2020, JPs handled 756 death cases. In the first six months of 2025 alone, there were 800 cases.

“If we keep on growing at this rate, by 2030 there will be 40 deaths a week,” County Manager Rebecca Clemons said.

The four JPs split the work. Each justice is on call for all the deaths across the county for one week of the month, while continuing to handle their court work.

“That’s a very heavy workload,” Clemons said. “As the population keeps growing, it is too much for one person.”

One commissioner suggested that with the DII program in place, the JPs might finally get some sleep.

The volume of death-scene work also curtails the time justices can spend on the other business of their courts, which keeps increasing as Wilco grows.

As of last November, Precinct 2 JP Angela Williams reported there were 2,123 civil cases and 4,391 criminal cases awaiting hearing in her court alone.

The other justice courts also have a backlog.

TRIMMING THE COURTS’ WORKLOAD

The solution to the problem, as the JPs and many county officials see it, is someday hiring a Williamson County medical examiner. With almost 728,000 residents, Wilco is the 12th-largest county in Texas by population.

Yet it remains the only one of the 13 largest Texas counties without a medical examiner’s office.

The DII program is intended to bridge the gap until Wilco can afford a medical examiner and possibly a crime lab. A true medical examiner is a doctor, a pathologist trained in forensic medicine.

“We’re doctors and we have patients, it’s just that they’re dead,” a Bexar County medical examiner famously quipped several years ago.

Back in 2015, former County Judge Bill Gravell, then the Precinct 3 JP, suggested hiring death investigators to assist the other judges.

It took nearly 10 years, but in August 2024, Williamson County commissioners passed a budget including $309,087 to fund hiring four skilled DIIs. In December, they added $47,827 to the program.

Gravell, who left the courthouse in Georgetown last spring for a job with the Trump administration, at the time said the DII program “may be the most important thing I‘ve been part of since I’ve been county judge.”

In January, four experienced death investigators started their jobs.

Each was assigned to work with one justice and to be on call 24/7 to conduct much of the fieldwork, investigation and reporting for death cases. They spend the other three weeks doing office work.

ROOMFORIMPROVEMENT

The DII program got off to a bumpy start.

In June, Wilco’s justices released a joint statement, signed by all four.

“With the recent hiring of death investigators in January 2025, we had hoped to see a meaningful reduction in the time judges must devote to inquest-related duties,” it said. “The intent was to allow us more time to focus on our court dockets, including civil and criminal cases, truancy and administrative cases, all essential to maintaining the rule of law in our communities.

“Unfortunately, that goal has not been realized. Despite the addition of investigative staff, the time demands on justices of the peace related to death inquest matters have not decreased in the way it was originally intended.”

While justices K.T. Musselman, Angela Williams and Evelyn McLean continued working with their DIIs, Taylor-based Rhonda Redden discontinued the program in Precinct 4.

Redden is the most experienced JP when it comes to handling deaths. An accredited Death Investigator II through the Texas Forensic Sciences Academy, she spent nine years as a crime-scene and death-scene investigator and three years as a DII with the Hutto Police Department.

“I will readily say that I want and need help in the form of an inquest investigator until the goal of medical examiner is achieved. However, I need help that is actually helpful,” Redden wrote in response to questions from the Insider. “For me, the program did not provide the help I had hoped for, and it did not relieve me from having to commit substantial time to investigations…I couldn’t justify the money spent for a death investigator when I was having to do so much of it myself.”

Redden said she believes DIIs and investigators can be very effective working together but added the structure of the Wilco program was less than ideal. Originally, she said, the justices requested that each JP have their own inquest investigator who would work for them as an employee.

Instead, county commissioners established a separate Office of Death Investigator directly under the county manager instead of the justices’ courts.

“The JPs do not have authority over the inquest investigators,” Redden continued. “This dual chain of command…has created a level of bureaucracy that is convoluted and has, at times, undermined the authority of the JP over their own inquest investigations.”

The other JPs agree they would prefer to have their DIIs work directly for them without “dual-authority” complications, she added, but “based on conversations with the commissioners and county manager, that is not likely to happen.”

On the bright side, Redden said “in two precincts the program is working mostly as it was designed, although with some nowminimal issues surrounding the chain of command. We consider that progress made.”

Redden also collaborated with the other three JPs on another joint statement that was considerably more positive than the one they released in June.

“With death investigators starting work in January 2025, each office has experienced various adjustments and challenges as we continue to refine processes and ensure consistent operations across precincts,” they wrote. “We began this initiative as a unified team and remain committed to that teamwork …. the justices of the peace collectively support providing Precinct 4 with the necessary assistance to ensure equitable coverage and efficiency in death investigations throughout the county.”

The same evening that Williams forwarded that joint statement to the Insider, Redden sent an update to her earlier comments.

“The county manager has advised JP4 that a change was made in the program and a job listing has been posted attempting to fill the vacant position for a DII in Precinct 4. The JP4 office is hopeful that by 2026 some relief can be achieved in the area of death inquests,” Redden said.

The DII program “will be flexible over the next few years,” Clemons said, until Williamson County has its own medical examiner.

Then the justices might finally get some sleep.