(Rush County, IN) – Brenda McMahan is no stranger to death.
The Anderson native grew up above what was then the Rozelle funeral home on West Eighth Street, where her father was a mortician.
Despite the wide, welcoming porch none of her friends wanted to visit there, nor were there many trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. But mourners gathered to say goodbye to friends and loved ones, and those gatherings prepared McMahan for her decades of working with the deceased.
McMahan is wrapping up a four-year term as coroner in Rush County, which has nearly 17,000 people and is located roughly between Indianapolis and Cincinnati. She spent nearly 30 years before that as an excise officer in Indiana. She’s investigated natural deaths, and those that are the stuff of nightmares.
Death, she said, often brings out the worst in people.
“It brings out everyone’s fears.”
But for a county coroner in rural Indiana, there’s honor and duty in fulfilling the responsibility of serving the area’s residents. Still, that sense of service doesn’t always counteract the low pay and long hours most coroners face. It’s why in many counties, it’s a race that can be void of party politics, because residents are often just happy to have someone qualified in a thankless role.
Such is the case in Rush County, where Scott Medd will succeed McMahan, a Republican, when her term expires. Medd, a Democrat, is running unopposed for the position in a heavily Republican county.
Medd’s resume makes him more than qualified for the job. He’s worked in fire and EMT services for 30 years, and is a veteran of the Desert Storm campaign in Iraq.
Despite his training, he may not have won against a less qualified Republican opponent because of that party’s dominance in the county.
“A lot of people said, ‘why bother?’ So I respect and I appreciate the Republican Party thinking enough of me that they did not put anybody up against me,” Medd said.
Politics shouldn’t matter, he said. Ability, and a willingness to step up, should.
“Not everybody wants to do the job.”
Why is the county coroner elected?
The 2024 general election includes federal- and state-level roles on the ballot — presidential, gubernatorial and senatorial races will make this November one to remember. But Rush County voters will also cast ballots for the less-than-glamorous role of county coroner.
It’s a job almost no one thinks about, unless or until someone needs help.
The coroner and/or deputy coroners arrive at calls that could be everything from a natural death at a nursing home to a fatal car crash. They interview witnesses to get a complete idea of what happened, investigate to rule out homicide, perhaps collect maggot samples, or testify in local court hearings, console grieving families or order autopsies.
Then, using every piece of information, the coroner ultimately has to record the cause, manner and mechanism of death. But before the investigations and training begin, the coroner has to get elected into office, running with a party.
“I don’t think the coroner ought to be one party or the other, because we serve both parties the same way. We don’t treat a Republican better than we treat a Democrat or a Democrat better than a Republican,” said Tony Ciriello, Indiana Coroners Training Board director of training.
“So I think our position ought not be a partisan position and not have an affiliation, but it’s not that way because it’s (mandated) by state constitution.”
Technically, in order to be qualified, a person must be elected and have lived in their county of election for at least one year, according to the training board. Until 1994, there were no educational resources for Hoosier coroners or their deputies, and no prior qualifications were needed for taking the job. Beginning in 2000, curriculum was developed and training became required for all deputy coroners.
Social, medical and legal sensibilities are intermixed in a county coroner’s job requirements.
From having practical knowledge of local, state and federal laws, codes, ordinances, and procedures to a working knowledge of universal health precautions, or dealing with potentially violent individuals, there are 25 items on the bulleted job requirements list for the Rush County coroner and deputies as of December 2022.
Coroners can also issue subpoenas, authorize autopsies or request toxicological exams of a body, according to the training board.
Duty calls
But despite the long list of responsibilities, current deputy coroner Scott Medd says he is ready for the task of being the new Rush County coroner. He is running for McMahan’s position unopposed, and has completed his certification training.
“I mean, mind you, Indianapolis sees a lot more than we do, don’t get me wrong,” Medd said. “But you know, it all still boils down to the same classes and the same training,” which is a 40-hour course taught twice a year by the training board, as well as an externship.
Having a medical background is incentivized. Indiana law allows that coroners who are medical physicians are granted 1.5 times the base pay of their non-physician counterparts.
While larger counties might have more deaths per year, the work put into an investigation can be taxing no matter where it occurs.
For natural deaths such as old age, “you’re still looking at probably a good eight to 10 hours of work… And then if you’ve got something that’s more in depth, like Valerie Tindall or someone else, I mean, you’re looking at days, weeks, months,” McMahan said.
Tindall, a 17-year-old girl from Rush County, went missing June 8, 2023. During the investigation, McMahan would stay in touch with the sheriff’s department housed in the same building as the coroner’s office, hoping the girl would be found.
After nearly six months of investigation that involved roughly 40 federal agents and local law officers, Valerie’s body was found on a neighbor’s property, according to court documents. In March 2024, Patrick Scott pleaded guilty to Tindall’s murder and was sentenced to more than 50 years in prison.
McMahan said the case is exactly the kind of tragedy no county coroner wants to have to face.
“We just kind of hung out here, hoping that we were never going to be involved, to be honest with you. But once it became obvious that we were going to be involved, we stepped up,” McMahan said.
McMahan ends her term with a $13,000 salary, despite working what she described as a 24/7 schedule. It’s a little different for deputy coroners. For every 24 hours on call, deputies get a $50 stipend. For every investigation they see through from beginning to end, they are paid $110.
“I’m obviously not driving around in the coroner’s van for 24 hours, so I can go do things and be at my house. But you never know when the phone’s gonna ring,” she said.
The job also demands emotional intelligence and professionalism, things that cannot be written on a report.
“A coroner is what they consider a last responder,” said the training board’s Tony Ciriello. First responders like EMT, fire and police officers may be the first on the scene, but the last responders bring closure to families.
“We’re the ones knocking on doors saying, ‘I’m sorry to tell you your mom, your dad, your husband, your wife or child was killed or has died.’ And so how we start that conversation affects the grieving process in a family,” Ciriello said.
So despite, or maybe because of the demands, Medd is ready to step up.
“Somebody has to take the time to want to do the job, you have to be willing to put the effort into getting out of bed at two o’clock in the morning, to go to somebody’s house, or a car wreck or whatever… You have to have that ability to get yourself out to do that, because you’re dealing with families, and if you don’t want to do that, then you know, you’re in the wrong line of work.
But for Medd, service is automatic and Rush County is home.
“Except for my time in the Navy, I’ve always lived here,” he said. “I try to bend over backwards to help people if I can.“
(Story by Nina Thompson/Mirror Indy and our newsgathering partners at Indiana News Service)
