County Lines: Death's last witness

County Lines: Death's last witness

Kelly Lear has spent her career speaking for the dead.

The latest: The Arapahoe County coroner retires next month after a dozen years in the elected position.

  • She leaves behind one of four Colorado coroner's offices accredited by the National Association of Medical Examiners.

    • Catch up quick: Lear, a Democrat, became coroner in 2014 after joining the county as a forensic pathologist in 2004.

    Zoom in: She doesn't save lives, but her work aims to explain how lives ended.

  • "It's our job to speak for people when they can't do it anymore," Lear tells Axios.

    • By the numbers: Arapahoe County has about 5,000 deaths a year. Lear's office directly handles roughly 900 cases.

  • That means sudden deaths, unattended deaths, crashes, overdoses, suicides, homicides and more.

    • Flashback: Lear performed six of the 12 autopsies after the Aurora theater shooting.

  • She also conducted the autopsy on Angela Craig, whose dentist husband poisoned her in 2023.

    • Reality check: "Most of the things we see aren't the big ones" that get headlines, Lear says.

    Between the lines: The work has made death more personal — and Lear more practical about mortality.

  • One memorable case involved a father killed by an elderly, wrong-way driver.
  • "You don't know when the end is going to come," she says.

    • What's next: Lear says she'll work part time, doing autopsies for Jefferson County and — occasionally — Denver.

    The bottom line: The coroner's work has been about finding answers for the families left behind.

    🤨 Proust Questionnaire ⁉️

  • Your greatest love? "My wife and my daughter."
  • If you came back as a person or a thing, what would it be? "A sea turtle. I want to be in the ocean. I want to be free."