Autopsy: Hanging Killed 19YO

An autopsy performed on former Coeur d’Alene High honor student Chad Vincent Gardner, 19, ruled that he suffocated due to hanging in the Nez Perce County Jail cell he occupied by himself Saturday. The Spokane Medical Examiner’s Office conducted the autopsy. Foul play is not suspected. Gardner was being held in the Lewiston jail for a probation violation. Gardner, who was charged with raping a 15-year-old girl in 2008, was found unconscious in his cell by the Nez Perce County Jail staff at about midnight Saturday, according to the Idaho State Police. He was at the jail in Lewiston under an agreement with Kootenai County to house inmates there due to jail crowding in Coeur d’Alene. He was convicted of felony injury to a child in 2009 in the rape case involving a girl, 15, in Coeur d’Alene.