Coroner Adds To Another Family’s Grief Amend Quizzes A 13-Year-Old About The Sexuality Of His Little Brother Who Was Recently Killed In A Fire

Relatives of an 11-year-old fire victim are so outraged at Spokane County’s coroner they can hardly talk about him without crying or cursing.

Thirteen-year-old Brian Himes’ voice wavers as he describes how Dr. Dexter Amend quizzed him about his little brother’s sexuality.

Robert Himes sobs while saying over and over that his dead son, Jeffrey, was a normal kid - not some pervert - who liked boxing and hanging out with friends.

Why, the North Side family wants to know, did Amend ask repeatedly Tuesday whether Jeffrey masturbated or had sex with another boy?

What does that have to do with their son’s death, they ask.

A portable heater is blamed for the Monday morning blaze on South Custer that destroyed a metal shed, killing Jeffrey and severely injuring his friend, 15-year-old Brent Connely. The older boy was using the shed as his bedroom.

In investigating the death the next day, Amend quickly zeroed in on sex, family members said.

“I’m thinking this guy is strange to talk about this,” said Brian Himes, a seventh-grader. “Especially when I just found out my little brother died.”

When the boys’ father confronted Amend about the line of questioning, Himes said the coroner told him sexual deviancy abounds in Spokane.

“He said there’s a bunch of sexual deviants in Spokane, and it was his job to pursue this,” said Himes, a construction worker. “I couldn’t believe it.”

It isn’t the first time Amend’s comments about sex have angered families dealing with the death of a loved one.

Last summer, Amend bluntly asked if a Spokane teenager killed in a gang-related shooting was ever sodomized by gangsters, said the girl’s distraught mother.

“I thought what in the hell does getting shot in the head have to do with being sodomized?” said Mabel Grantham.

Kendra Grantham, 16, and Cindy Buffin, 17, were shot Aug. 9 while sitting on a porch with friends in northeast Spokane.

“It’s hard enough for me to even think of her being dead without him asking me questions like this,” said Mabel Grantham. “I thought, gee, this guy doesn’t have a homosexual issue here. He’s just a pervert.”

Through his secretary, Amend refused to return calls for comment. He has been advised by his attorney to avoid interviews, she said.

A group of citizens has been trying to recall the elected coroner since August, when he tried to link the murder of a 9-year-old girl to homosexuality. Rachel Carver’s uncle later confessed to the killing.

In November, relatives of a cosmetologist who died of AIDS-related complications were shocked when Amend wanted an examination of the man’s anal region. It was an attempt, they said, to connect his death with sodomy.

AIDS specialist Dr. Daniel Coulston blasted Amend for his insensitivity to Curtis Backcock’s family.

“His first question was whether Curtis was a practicing sodomist,” said Coulston.

Forensic pathologist Dr. George Lindholm refused to conduct the autopsy, calling Amend’s actions a “public witch hunt.”

Lindholm, who also performed autopsies on Kendra Grantham and Jeffrey Himes, said sex wasn’t suspected as a factor in either death.

“It never crossed my mind,” he said.

Himes’ autopsy showed he was alive when the shed fire started and probably died of smoke inhalation, Lindholm said.

A leader of the recall effort said he’s not surprised to hear that the coroner incensed another grieving family this week.

“It’s very inappropriate, even hateful,” said Chris Christenson, a retired school teacher. “I see no reason in the world for him raising these questions. I wish the public could be protected from him.”

Recall supporters thought they were making progress in September, when a Superior Court judge agreed to put the recall before voters if enough signatures were collected.

But the petition was delayed when Amend appealed that decision. The Washington Supreme Court is set to review the judge’s decision next month.

If justices agree the recall vote is valid, petitioners will have six months to gather the more than 35,000 valid signatures needed to get it on the ballot. No one knows when it would go before voters.

Amend is also being investigated by the state Medical Quality Assurance Commission at Gov. Mike Lowry’s request. Spokane County Medical Society members say they, too, have received a number of troubling complaints about Amend.

Now Jeffrey Himes’ mother, Paula Chain, is siding with those who want Amend removed from office.

Chain said Amend asked about her son’s sexuality Tuesday after she called his office to see if he had positively identified Jeffrey’s body.

Her son, Brian, talked to Amend before handing the telephone over and saying the coroner was “talking gross.”

“I just don’t understand why he’s so disrespectful to my son who’s gone and my son who’s living,” Chain said.

“He can’t get away with this. Not where children are concerned.”

, DataTimes