Longtime Uinta County Coroner Gregory Crandall was arrested Wednesday morning on allegations he stole more than $41,000 of public money, intentionally falsified a death certificate, and committed numerous other acts of misconduct.
Crandall, 66, has been the county coroner since 2003 and is unopposed on the upcoming Nov. 3 general election ballot.
He also owned Crandall Funeral Home in Evanston for most of that tenure before selling the business to Allen Kopp on July 1, 2024. Kopp ran unsuccessfully in the August primary to unseat Crandall from his position as coroner.
Crandall faces 11 criminal charges, including five felonies, that allege official misconduct, issuing false certificates, neglect of his duties in a criminal case, theft, conflict of interest and multiple counts of making false written statements.
During a nearly 19-month investigation that began March 12, 2025, the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation conducted an independent investigation into Crandall and his office, DCI uncovered “a broader pattern of financial fraud, official misconduct, evidentiary and administrative irregularities,” Agent Daniel Allison wrote in an affidavit of probable cause filed in Crandall’s case.
After Uinta County Attorney Loretta Howieson-Kallas requested DCI do an independent investigation of Crandall, the agency found numerous alleged illegal activities and examples of shoddy work by the coroner and his deputies, the affidavit says.
In one case, Crandall convinced the state of Wyoming to change the cause of death on a woman’s death certificate to cover up mistakes he made in contaminating the body, the affidavit alleges.
In another case, a body was sent to a pathologist in Colorado wrapped simply in a blanket without any of the required documentation and evidentiary paperwork completed, Allison wrote.
The county attorney “outlined severe operational and evidentiary failures, highlighting a March 12, 2025, officer-involved shooting where a decedent was transported to Colorado wrapped solely in a blanket without a sterile bag, evidence tape, or clear chain of custody,” the affidavit says.
After selling his funeral home, which also served as the official coroner’s office for Crandall and his deputies, the new owner also made a number of disturbing discoveries, Allison wrote.
Photos provided by the new owner showed “pervasive evidence mishandling at the facility, including Ziploc bags of loose prescription drugs, unfilled laboratory envelopes, unrefrigerated tissue and blood samples stored in desk drawers or plastic bottles,” according to the affidavit.
There also was pervasive commingling of sensitive official county coroner files with the private business records.
The county attorney also noted an instance where one of Crandall’s deputy coroners “admitting to being physically unable to respond to a scene due to alcohol consumption.”
The Death Certificate
One felony charge Crandall faces for issuing false certificates stems from an incident that began April 3, 2025, when a 56-year-old woman died in Evanston, the affidavit says.
Crandall initially issued a death certificate stating that the woman died a “natural death” caused by complications of Type 2 diabetes. However, a toxicology report dated May 13, 2025, “revealed an extraordinary and lethal concentration of methanol … commonly formaldehyde,” Allison wrote.
Despite Evanston police indicating there were no substances in the woman’s apartment that could account for that, Crandall didn’t initiate an investigation and instead sent an email to the state Department of Health Vital Records requesting a change of her death certificate to change the cause of death to “menthol poisoning” and the method of death as “accident.”
In the process, Crandall allegedly was covering up the likelihood that the contamination with formaldehyde came from the funeral home, the affidavit says.
“By certifying to the state that the death as an ‘accidental’ poisoning while actively ignoring that no methanol-bearing items were found at the scene, and that his office likely contaminated the blood sample during embalming, Crandall knowingly issued a false official statement,” the affidavit says.
Even more evidence was ignored when police documented at the scene of the woman’s home that an alleged illegal drug dealer had been seen at the apartment doing drugs with her shortly before her death, the agent wrote.
“This created an inescapable legal duty” for Crandall, the affidavit says. “If the blood was drawn before embalming contamination occurred, a lethal chemical poison in a home devoid of methanol products represented a potential homicide or suicide requiring a formal criminal investigation.”
On the other hand, if the contamination came after embalming, that represents “severe evidence spoilation and improper evidence handling in a coroner’s case,” Allison wrote.
Instead of performing his duties, Crandall instead “misdirected” officials to rule the death an accident, the affidavit claims.
“The evidence strongly supports the conclusion that Crandall’s total lack of investigation into the lethal methanol levels was a deliberate attempt to cover up a critical error made by his office,” the document concludes.
Bogus Billing
The investigation also included an exhaustive audit of 14 years’ worth of Uinta County financial records and vouchers for the coroner’s office, along with a 26-year review of county commission meeting minutes.
That revealed a not-so-elaborate scheme in which Crandall would overcharge the county for his services as coroner, or charge for services that were never performed, Allison wrote.
Overall, DCI found more than $41,000 worth of those charges.
“Between July 2021 and July 2024, Crandall exploited his dual capacity as elected county coroner and private owner of Crandall Funeral Home Inc. to manipulate county disbursements for his direct personal and business financial gain,” the affidavit says.
He’s accused of grossly overbilling the county for some service, along with submitting vouchers for other services that were never done, the document adds.
Allison calls some of these nonexistent services “phantom cases,” where in fiscal year 2024, medical examiners performed 12 physical autopsies for Uinta County, but Crandall submitted vouchers for 30 cases.
Many of these charges were for facility usage fees, billing the county for the use of his funeral home to do county business. However, the investigation revealed that Crandall Funeral Home never had a contract with the county to use his private business for official business.
“As the elected Uinta County Coroner, Crandall held the sole administrative discretion over local post-mortem intake, body storage, and facility selection,” the affidavit says. “Crandall abused his official discretion by funneling county business directly to Crandall Funeral Home Inc., a private business he owned and operated.”
One allegedly egregious example was a 2023 autopsy that Crandall sent a body to Lander to have done. He also billed the county $2,000 for his own “facilities usage” even though the autopsy was performed somewhere else, the affidavit says.
When he sold the funeral home, “this county-backed revenue stream collapsed entirely, exposing that the entire billing structure was a product of dual-role self-dealing,” the affidavit says.
The Charges
Overall, Crandall faces 11 criminal charges, five felonies that could get up to a maximum of 35 years in prison, and six misdemeanors with various ranges of jail time and fines.
• Theft, a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, a fine of $10,000, or both.
• Issuing false certificate, a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, a fine of $10,000, or both.
• Three counts of false written statements, a felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison, a fine of $5,000, or both.
• Conflict of interest, a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than $5,000.
• Failure to maintain confidentiality of reports, photos and recordings, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 6 months in jail, a fine of not more than $1,000, or both.
• Neglect of ministerial officer to perform duty in a criminal case, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 6 months in jail, a fine of not more than $500, or both.
• Issuing a false certificate, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 1 year in jail, a fine of not more than $1,000, or both.
• Possession of a controlled substance in pill or capsule form, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail, a fine of not more than $1,000, or both.
• Official misconduct, a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than $5,000.
Crandall had his first appearance in Uinta County Circuit Court on Wednesday, and has a preliminary hearing on the felony charges set for Oct. 30.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
