Hearing concerns from others about death investigations in Lewis County made Jessica Stickley wonder if she should do something to address those concerns.
With roughly 15 years of experience in the industry, including about 10 with the Lewis County Coroner’s Office, Stickley landed on a run to become Lewis County coroner. She's running as an independent.
In a recent interview with The Chronicle, Stickley said she is excited simply for voters to have a choice for their elected county coroner.
Incumbent Warren McLeod, a Republican, has served as Lewis County coroner since Jan. 1, 2011, after defeating former federal agent Micheal Hurley in the 2010 election. He has been unchallenged since.
Now, 16 years later, Stickley is one of two challengers for McLeod’s position, turning a race that has become consistently unopposed into a three-way battle. The other candidate is Lewis County Chief Deputy Coroner Chelsie Niemcziek, who is running as an independent.
“I totally stepped up to the board and was like, ‘I am so excited for Lewis County to have an opportunity for change,’” Stickley said. “You know, people are going to have a choice.”
For Stickley, concerns over some controversial death investigations, such as the one related to the Aron Christensen case, and overall transparency prompted her campaign for coroner. She adds that she would like to see the coroner’s office in Lewis County do more to help prevent deaths.
She admits that she has had constituents question why the coroner’s office, an agency responsible for addressing deaths after the fact, would be involved in prevention. But she argues prevention is an equally important part of the job.
“I believe that every death tells a story,” Stickley said. “Sometimes, those stories reveal opportunities for an opportunity to save lives, whether it's suicide prevention or it's overdose awareness, water safety, heat illness, impaired driving, senior fall prevention.”
The desire for more thorough investigations, transparency and deeper community involvement appear to be the calling card for the political challenges against the incumbent, with fellow coroner candidate Neimcziek broadcasting similar points as part of her own platform.
Stickley recognizes that the coroner’s office is already involved in some aspects of prevention and community involvement, including with local driving schools and other programs, but said she believes the office can take it even further.
Stickley said she has started brainstorming with constituents considering something like a monthly gathering to discuss death along with a focus on some sort of prevention.
“I just think that there are a multitude of other options that could also be tapped into,” Stickley said. “Just seeing what might fit our community in several different areas is what I want to do.”
According to Stickley, she has been a resident of Lewis County for roughly 21 years and has worked in the coroner and death investigation field for roughly 15 years.
Stickley was raised in Rochester, just north of the Lewis County border with neighboring Thurston County. Despite being a lifelong resident of Southwest Washington, she is also an Alaskan Native, a registered member of the Native Village of Afognak, which today is based out of Kodiak, Alaska. It is a federally recognized tribe and one of many that represent the greater Alutiiq people of the Alaskan coast.
Stickley sees one of her first jobs working for a biohazard remediation company at the age of 19 as the start of her path toward death investigation work. While it was not directly connected to the industry she now occupies, she said it gave her an “early appreciation” for the industry and the need for professionalism and compassion in the face of tragedy.
After moving to Lewis County originally in 2005, Stickley officially started working with the Lewis County Coroner’s Office in 2009 as an on-call deputy after what she referred to as a “brief internship” with the agency. She eventually resigned from the office in 2019.
In 2023, she started as coroner investigator with Cowlitz County, working in the office for two years through 2025. She currently works as a medicolegal death investigator in Columbia County.
Stickley argues her experience working as a coroner in many different counties in the state gives her a unique perspective and experience that she can bring to the job.
Stickley’s employment record has been the cause of some criticism online, as some, including Stickley herself, have released public records concerning her employment history and resignations from her roles with both the Lewis County Coroner’s Office and the Cowlitz County Coroner’s Office.
After the release of records concerning her employment, Stickley said there were “definitely some missing pieces to my Lewis County records that were unaccounted for.”
Stickley claims she was forced to resign from Lewis County after taking actions that were in line with county policy and received verbal approval from Lewis County Coroner Warren McLeod. She further claims that she resigned from Cowlitz County due to a toxic work environment.
During her interview with The Chronicle, Stickley said she would like readers to consider who is in control of the documents being released when reading them and considering her employment history.
“Knowing that that's controlled by somebody who is my opponent,” Stickley said “Also understanding that the person that I worked for in Cowlitz County learned her leadership skills from Lewis County.”
Both in her interview and on Facebook, Stickley has challenged the documents and alleged that documents now included in her file reflect allegations against her performance that she was not notified of or given a chance to respond to. According to her own Facebook posts, Stickley has also filed an official request through her legal representation for certain personnel records within the Lewis County government to be destroyed.
More information on Stickley’s platform and background is available on her campaign website, https://stickleyforcoroner.com, and campaign Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/stickleyforcoroner.
