Safety Fleeting, Tragedy Forever

Three years after Cody Taylor was mistaken for an elk and killed, mourners cover his grave with gifts and flowers as if it were new.

His white-haired mother, Anne, weeps with unrelenting sorrow. His brain-damaged brother wanders to the grave whenever he’s not watched.

“I’ll never be at peace,” Anne says. She fusses with the artificial roses and hollyhocks on the wrought iron arbor that marks her son’s grave. The metal is shaped into “Cody” across the top and matches the silver name on a leather cord around her neck.

Cody was a popular Coeur d’Alene musician, father and real estate broker whose bizarre death in 1994 apparently woke up hunters all over Idaho. Hunters killed nothing but animals in 1995 and 1996, no thanks to legislators who refuse to make blaze orange mandatory hunting wear.

The improved statistics hearten hunting safety instructors, but they’re not much solace for Anne.

She visits Cody’s grave daily and collects any scrap of newspaper that prints his name or picture. She hands out bumper stickers that say “Remember Cody Taylor.” She saves everything left at his grave.

Life is no happier for Dennis Miner, the man who shot Cody.

“That has to be the worst thing I can think of - going from the elation of getting your first elk to finding out you got your hunting partner,” says Boundary County Sheriff Greg Sprungl, who was among those who responded to the shooting.

Cody was 38 when he took off elk hunting near Naples with Miner. Usually, Cody hunted with his dad. But heart problems kept his dad at home that year.

The men separated to track elk in the Trail Creek area of Boundary County. Cody strayed from the agreed-upon path and apparently switched his red coat for a gray one.

A few minutes later, Miner shot him in the back, unable to tell at about 50 yards through his rifle’s scope that his target was a man.

Miner was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but got a reprieve after a jury deadlocked. A second trial was scheduled for last spring, but Boundary County Prosecutor Denise Woodbury had the charges against Miner dropped just before the trial started.

She says Miner, 50, was in no shape to stand trial after a recent car accident. She can file the charges again, but conventional wisdom says she won’t.

Fate has dished out its own penalties to Miner. Sprungl remembers how distraught Miner was after the shooting. Then, Miner’s diabetes went out of control.

Earlier this year, not too far from the shooting scene, the car Miner was driving was hit by a couple of teenage boys who ran a stop sign. The crash broke Miner’s leg and gashed his head.

It’s fairly obvious, except to the very stubborn, that a bright orange vest and some common sense might have saved Anne Taylor from her grief, Miner from his downward spiral and Cody from death.

Sprungl wants hunters to wear orange. Phil Cooper, the region’s wildlife educator for the state Fish and Game Department, wants hunters to wear orange. In the hunter education classes he teaches, he urges hunters to wear orange and not shoot unless they can see clearly.

Hunters learned from Cody Taylor’s death for a few years. But how long will the lesson last and who will be the next example?

Drink up

There are few better spots to sip good wine and nibble hors d’oeuvres and desserts than Hayden Lake’s Clark House.

The North Idaho AIDS Coalition will do both there Sunday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. and auction off artwork, massages, theater tickets and more to raise money for emergency care.

Nice place to spend a fall afternoon. Tickets are $20. Call 762-8197 for details.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: Where’s your favorite fall drive in North Idaho? Map out a route for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; FAX to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.