Ex-Yakima coroner pleads guilty to lying to police in corpse drug case

Ex-Yakima County Coroner Jim Curtice pleaded guilty this week to lying to police about overdosing on drugs he found on dead bodies.

He entered his plea in Yakima County District Court, where he was being tried on charges of tampering with evidence, official misconduct and providing false information to a government official.

Curtice resigned as coroner last year amid pressure from his criminal case, a recall attempt and other questions about his work, including his investigation of a disturbing death inside the Yakima County jail.

In return for his guilty plea Wednesday, Union Gap Prosecuting Attorney Margita Dornay moved to dismiss with prejudice the official misconduct and evidence tampering charges. By dismissing with prejudice, the charges cannot be refiled.

Dornay was appointed to handle the case because of a conflict of interest with the Yakima County prosecuting attorney’s office. Prosecuting Attorney Joe Brusic said earlier that he had conversations with Curtice that potentially made him a witness in the case.

The case was heard before Benton County District Court Judge Terry Tanner after Yakima County judges recused themselves.

Curtice received a suspended 364-day jail sentence, the maximum for a gross misdemeanor, and was ordered to perform 30 hours of community service.

Bill Pickett, Curtice’s attorney, said Curtice will use his cadaver dog, Justice, to search for missing people to fill his community service hours.

“I think, all in all, it’s a very solid result to put an end to a lot of speculation and consternation and difficulty in people’s lives,” Pickett said. “And that’s allowing Mr. Curtice to move forward.”

The charges stem from Curtice’s drug use, which came to light after he overdosed in his office in August 2024 and claimed that someone spiked his workout drink powder and a tea kettle in his office with fentanyl. Curtice told Yakima police detectives that then-Chief Deputy Yakima County Coroner Marshall Slight, who ran against Curtice in 2022, had motive to kill him, according to the complaint filed by prosecutors.

But his story began to unravel when he failed a polygraph test administered on behalf of police detectives. When questioned by investigators from the FBI and Yakima police, Curtice admitted that he had been using the drugs he found on corpses.

Curtice checked into Deer Hollow, a Utah rehabilitation center that specializes in police and first responders. Curtice first went there in 2023, after he was accused of kicking a sheriff’s deputy who responded to his home when Curtice was drunk and fighting with an off-duty deputy.

In both cases, Curtice’s wife said that Curtice’s behavior was due to post-traumatic stress disorder that came from childhood trauma and his career as a paramedic.

Curtice avoided jail and kept his job after his 2023 encounter with law enforcement. The Seattle Times later contrasted his experience with that of Hien Trung Hua, a Yakima man who was jailed during a mental health crisis in 2023 and died days later during a struggle with jail guards.

As coroner, Curtice reported Hua’s manner of death as natural, and a jail investigation cleared the guards of wrongdoing. But reporting by The Times showed the guards grappled with Hua for minutes and restrained him face down before his death, violating a jail policy. That led the forensic pathologist who had performed Hua’s autopsy for Curtice’s office to relabel the death as negligent homicide.

Rather than agree with the pathologist’s new finding, Curtice instead changed Hua’s manner of death to an accident. Hua’s mother is suing the county, and Washington’s Office of Independent Investigations is looking into the death.

Contacted Thursday, Pickett didn’t comment on Curtice’s connection to the Hua case.

Slight, who was appointed interim coroner after Curtice resigned and has since been elected to the office, said that he wished Curtice well and “hopefully, he continues to be positive in all that he does.”

Slight and the pathologist who performed Hua’s autopsy, among others, both threatened to resign if Curtice returned to work.

As part of his agreement with the county to resign in April 2025, Curtice was paid six months’ salary.

Seattle Times staff reporter Daniel Beekman contributed to this report

Donald W. Meyers.