Former homicide prosecutor Chris Ryan runs for Eagle County coroner

Aspen —“Some public offices can be learned after Election Day. The office of coroner isn’t one of them.”

Chris Ryan didn’t mince words in his recent opinion piece for the Vail Daily. He’s running for Eagle County coroner, and he’s betting his career on the idea that this isn’t a ceremonial role where you can wing it until your first term ends. It’s an investigative job that demands immediate competence, not a learning curve paid for by grieving families.

Ryan is an attorney and former homicide prosecutor. He’s been doing this work for years, long before he announced his candidacy. He doesn’t just sit in an office waiting for a call; he’s the one called at 3:00 a.m. He’s investigated dozens of homicides, fatal crashes, and overdoses across Eagle County. That’s not a resume filled with hypotheticals. It’s a track record of showing up when things go wrong in the mountains.

Let’s look at the structure of the office, because that’s where the rubber meets the road. The coroner is the county’s chief death investigator and administrator of a specialized team. Here in Eagle County, state law doesn’t require the coroner to be a physician. A high school diploma and basic qualifications for county office are enough.

That sounds simple, but it creates a specific operational reality. The Office of Coroner does not have a forensic pathologist on staff. A forensic pathologist is a physician specially trained to conduct autopsies. When an autopsy is needed in Eagle County, the office contracts with larger Front Range offices that employ these full-time experts.

So why is an attorney the right choice for a job that involves heavy medical and scientific components? Ryan argues it’s because he has spent his career working alongside the very professionals this office relies upon. He lists them out: forensic pathologists, law enforcement officers, forensic analysts, psychologists, crash reconstructionists, and other attorneys. He’s not guessing how they work. He’s watched them work since he was 23, observing an autopsy conducted by Dr. Leon Kelly while interning at a District Attorney’s Office in El Paso County.

The core function of the coroner, according to Ryan, is supporting families through heartache by providing guidance about next steps. He explains why procedures are necessary and helps families understand laws they may be unfamiliar with during an unimaginably difficult time. This support means conducting every investigation with the same rigor as a homicide case, even if it’s just an accidental death.

On paper, this looks like a solid pitch for continuity. In practice, it means locals get an investigator who already knows the players. Ryan attended many more autopsies and worked with the results from even more than he has directly performed. He knows how to interpret the data that comes back from those Front Range contracts.

The cost to taxpayers isn’t explicitly detailed in the opinion piece, but the efficiency argument is clear. Keeping an experienced attorney who understands the legal and forensic landscape in charge of a system that already outsources the heavy medical lifting should keep costs predictable. There’s no need to hire a full-time physician if the coroner knows exactly how to leverage external experts.

Ryan’s journey started with a confirmation that public service was where he belonged. Now, he’s asking for the vote to keep him in that lane. He’s not promising to reinvent the wheel. He’s promising to know how to drive it.

For Eagle County families, this means the person in charge of your loved one’s death already knows how to navigate the bureaucracy. That’s worth something when you’re standing in a morgue or looking at a bill for an autopsy.