Will Co. Coroner Laurie Summers Fails Public Transparency Test: Ferak

JOLIET, IL — Far too often, once a political candidate wins and takes office, they seem to disappear from sight, failing to live up to the standards the voters should expect. Unfortunately, that's been the case with Laurie Summers, a Democrat from Crete, who took over as Will County's Coroner in 2020, with help from her predecessor, Patrick O'Neil of Lockport.

Serving as the Will County Coroner for roughly 28 years, O'Neil was a capable public servant. The Lockport Democrat served the communities of Will County well by keeping open the lines of communication and keeping everyone in the press appraised in a timely fashion of notable death investigations, mainly involving homicides and traffic fatalities.

If O'Neil was not able to answer specific questions about an ongoing death investigation on a moment's notice, he made sure one of his trained chief deputies filled in the blanks of the case.

In numerous high-profile death investigations and Will County homicides over the years, such as the 2017 death of little Semaj Crosby, O'Neil issued lengthy news releases, delving into extensive details regarding the findings pertaining to the cause and manner of death.

Other times, O'Neil hosted press conferences to provide the community with the most up to date information and field questions about a particular case, from members of the press.

Unfortunately, the same level of openness and public accessibility can't be said for his successor. Her tenure as coroner, since being elected by the voters in November 2020, continues to be marked by repeated issues of public inaccessibility and inconsistency. Summers has not lived up to the standards that O'Neil set and established for the Will County Coroner's Office.

For one, Summers has not made herself available for interviews with journalists to answer questions about her office's cases. Summers does not issue press releases. Her alternative is to post short, routinely vague, announcements called "Will County Coroner's Office Press Releases" on her agency's Facebook page.

Far too often, when Summers does issue a "Facebook press release," she causes more confusion for the readers and the press.

For example, her June 5 Facebook announcement identified both Zena Taher, 27, of Ponderosa Drive in Romeoville, and Firas Syriani, 33, as the victim of a gunshot. Labeling both people as "victims" gives the wrong impression that a killer's on the loose.

For reasons unclear, at no point since the autopsies from two weeks ago did Summers announce that Syriani was the shooter and Taher was the homicide victim.

Finally, on Friday morning, — 11 days after Summers' only "Facebook press release" — Romeoville Patch interviewed the Romeoville Police administration, confirming the June 2 Ponderosa Drive deaths are considered a murder-suicide.

When Summers does get around to issuing a timely "press release," which is becoming increasingly rare of late, there's little, if any, meaningful news she's providing.

After all, determining the cause and manner of death is one of her key duties and that's a matter of a public record in Illinois.

Yet, over and over, the Will County Coroner's Facebook Press Releases rarely inform people of the manner of death such as accidental, homicide, suicide or undetermined.

In the May 18 death of Joliet resident Jason Bingham, 24, whose body was found in the Des Plaines River, this is what Summers' office posted: "The autopsy of Mr. Jason C. Bingham, Jr., has been completed. The preliminary cause of death is pending toxicological studies at this time. The final cause and manner of death will be completed at a later date pending police, toxicological, and autopsy reports," she wrote.

At no point over the past month has Summers indicated Bingham's death is being treated as a drowning. The word drowning is not mentioned in her Facebook Press Release.

Also concerning, more and more of late, Summers failed to publish information on high-profile death investigations around Joliet.

On June 6, which is 10 days ago, Summers posted a vague announcement that a "male subject" was pronounced dead at the Silver Hospital Cross "of an apparent gunshot wound."

Summers did not list the community where it happened, nor the location of the shooting.

And then she did not post any information about the victim's age and identity for more than a week even after Latrel Smith-Vaden's funeral notice was posted on Joliet's Minor-Morris Funeral Home website.

In addition to Smith's slaying being ignored or forgotten about, for more than a week the Will County Coroner's Office Facebook page posted zero information about the tragic death of 23-year-old Joliet Kelly Avenue mother of three, Taylor Guerra.

Guerra was taken off life support at Silver Cross Hospital during the early morning hours of June 6. Joliet police have arrested Demetrius Glover in connection with her death and his bail remains set at $2.5 million.

Problems obtaining basic public information from our Will County Coroner apparently isn't just a Joliet Patch problem, it spills outside the county seat and also involves traffic fatalities.

In May, Manhattan Patch reporter Lauren Traut was forced to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the coroner's office because Summers chose to withhold the identity of a 65-year-old woman killed when her vehicle was involved in a crash with a semi truck in rural Manhattan.

Kay Bourke was killed April 27 when her car was hit at the intersection of Wilmington-Peotone and Cedar roads. Bourke's identity was only disclosed after Manhattan Patch filed a Freedom of Information request; taking until May 5 for the crash victim's identity to be released by Summers.

Still, Manhattan Patch disclosed in the May 5 article, "the coroner's office declined to provide a hometown for Bourke. Public records list a home in Alsip as a recent address for her."

Before I finished this column, around 4 p.m. Thursday, I emailed Summers a total of five questions to give her a chance to respond.

My questions were as follows:

1. Why does the Will County Coroner's Office Facebook page, under your tenure, rarely list the manner of death for someone? One example is the May 18 death of Jason Bingham, age 24, of Joliet, even though his body was found in the canal. Another example is the June (2) deaths of the two Romeoville residents found inside the house on Ponderosa Drive. The coroner's Facebook page lists both people as "victims" even though Romeoville police have called this crime a murder-suicide?

2. Why is your office publishing the names of some people suspected of being homicide victims and/or their deaths are being investigated as suspicious in nature, but not others? One recent example is the June 6 Benton Street Joliet death of Latrel Smith-Vaden, age 20. Another example is the death of Joliet 23-year-old Taylor Guerra of Kelly Avemue, who later died at Silver Cross on June 6?

3. Our Manhattan Patch reporter recently had to file a Freedom of Information Act request with your office to obtain the name of 65-year-old crash victim Kay Bourke and your office did not release the victim's hometown, which the reporter later obtained on her own. Please explain the lack of transparency on that particular traffic death in rural Manhattan and why that happened?

4. Is it your policy, written or unwritten, for you and your deputy coroners not to take phone calls from the news media to answer questions on death cases assigned to your office?

5. As an elected official, how would you rate your performance as Will County's Coroner in terms of your public transparency and your public accessibility with the news media?

On Friday afternoon, Summers responded to my set of questions by issuing a statement, rather than answering the five questions one at a time.

"Dear Mr. Ferak, In response to your inquiry, the Will County Coroner’s Office strives to keep the public informed of high profile news reports that involve deaths that occur in Will County," Summers wrote.

The rest of her statement continued as follows:

"Press releases are intended as a courtesy and not required or done in every case in the county. Our office prides itself on doing a thorough and exhaustive investigation to determine cause and manner of death. Our work is reflected on the death certificate.

"We often work in tandem with police agencies and during those investigations we strive to support and assist law enforcement, rather than impede their investigation. This often requires that details must be withheld from the public during the investigatory process.

"This office does not accept oral FOIA requests or media inquiries. This policy is to ensure that we are able to accurately respond to those requests and eliminate any misunderstandings.

"I pride myself on being transparent."

After I sent Summers my five questions Thursday, I later discovered the Will County Coroner's Facebook Page, finally, for the first time, announced the June 6 death of 23-year-old Taylor Guerra. In addition, the Will County Coroner's Office went back to its June 6 post and announced, "The decedent has been identified as Latrel Smith-Vaden. Cause and manner will be determined after Police, Autopsy and Toxicological reports have been completed."

Still, in both cases, Summers fails to mention that her agency is treating both of these unrelated Joliet deaths as homicides.

In any event, let's hope the remaining one-and-a-half years of Summers' term as our Will County Coroner leads to a dramatic tranformation for both her and her staff in terms of better open goverment.

The citizens of Will County — Democrats, Republicans, Independents, etc. — deserve better because we're the ones paying the salaries for Summers and all the employees who answer to her.