Trisha Clark

A former medicolegal death investigator announced her plan to run for Howard County Coroner during the next general election in November. Trisha Clark made the announcement via a campaign page on the social media website, Facebook, on Sunday. She will run as an Independent.

Originally from Mid-Missouri, she was graduated from Salisbury High School in 1993. Clark now lives in Glasgow with her husband, Kenny, who serves as Chief of Police in Brunswick. But for the last several years she investigated more than 1,100 deaths as a medicolegal death investigator in Orlando, Fla., including those involved in a mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub there in June 2016.

A veteran of the U.S. Navy, Clark earned the degree of Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice Administration from Missouri Southern State University in 2007. According to her announcement on the Facebook page, Trisha Clark For Howard County Coroner 2020, she served as a property and evidence technician for the Ocoee Florida Police Department and a crime scene investigator for both the Orlando and Melbourne Police Departments from 2007 to 2015. “I processed more than 650 crime scenes ranging from burglaries, traffic fatalities, sexual assaults, suicides, child abuse and homicides,” she wrote in the announcement.

Current Howard County Coroner, Frank Flaspohler, has served in the position for 30 years. He is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with the Glasgow school district over attorneys fees stemming from a coroner’s inquest in January 2017 that looked into the suicide death of rural Glasgow teenager Kenneth Suttner. 

It is unknown if Flaspohler intends to run for re-election. An attempt by this newspaper to reach him on Monday was unsuccessful.

Clark told the Fayette Advertiser that the recent controversy regarding the coroner’s office has nothing to do with her decision to run for the job. “I have a huge passion for the profession,” she said.

Clark said if elected she intends to work closely with law enforcement throughout the county and will offer her services as a certified crime scene instructor.

Clark and her husband relocated back to Mid-Missouri in the fall of 2018 to be closer to family. She said her family prefers small-town life and running for coroner would be the next step in pursuing her passion. The couple has two daughters, Aubrey, 24, and Samantha, 22.