InvestigateWest

10/30/2025

For the fourth consecutive year, Idaho’s incarceration rate for women is higher than any other state. That’s largely driven by harsh drug charges, many which have mandatory minimum sentences.

The state law that makes it a felony for corrections officers to have s*xual contact with inmates, by contrast, doesn't have a mandatory minimum sentence, leaving penalties up to a judge. That allows most offenders to avoid prison time altogether.

10/27/2025

Katie Kuhnhausen worried when she couldn't get a hold of her husband Alex at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, where he had nearly completed his 17-month sentence. She tried to visit him, but was turned away by staff. And the repeated calls she made to the penitentiary went unanswered.

She later found out why he had not been in touch: Alex, 25, had been in solitary confinement, where a bacterial infection ravaged his kidney and spread to his lungs and brain.

“They knew he was dying,” she said. “There’s so many things that I should have said or should have talked about with him, and I just didn’t get that time.”

10/27/2025

Washington state requires certain alleged domestic abusers to surrender their guns, but many Washington counties lack mechanisms to actually verify if guns are turned over, relying on the honor system instead.

A state court found Lauryn Berg's ex-husband complied with a surrender order after he turned in two handguns, but she feared he still had access to nearly a dozen other fi****ms. But gathering evidence that a person possesses guns they aren't supposed to isn't that easy.

10/25/2025

Mercer Island School District said it is investigating former English teacher Curtis Johnston hours after InvestigateWest reported how the district had previously dismissed allegations that he engaged in a s*xual relationship with a student in 2011.

10/25/2025

Mercer Island School District’s superintendent contacted police and launched a new investigation into former English teacher Curtis Johnston hours after InvestigateWest reported how the district had previously dismissed allegations that he engaged in a s*xual relationship with a student in 2011.

Story and photo by Moe Clark.

10/23/2025

In August 2011, Curtis Johnston was called to a meeting at the Mercer Island School District’s administrative office. Rumors had been swirling that the 44-year-old high school English teacher was in a romantic relationship with a teenage student.

The student’s mom had voiced concerns to the principal but feared she lacked evidence. Friends had grown suspicious, as did a church counselor, who reached out directly to the school. The two had been seen leaving in her car after a school charity event. She had become Johnston’s teaching assistant halfway through the semester, after a school trip overseas where they spent days alone together while she was in the hospital. He was seen leaving prom with her. He attended her graduation party.

Yet the purpose of the meeting, according to school records, was “To protect Curtis and the District.”

10/22/2025

10/16/2025

Andrea Weiskircher thought her life was over.

She was sobbing in a jail cell in Boise after reluctantly filing complaints against the Idaho prison workers who had s*xually abused her. It was the right thing to do. But now she faced another prison sentence and, she feared, retaliation for speaking up.

Other women flocked to console her. With a shaky voice, Weiskircher told the women about three different guards, across three Idaho facilities, that had abused her.

One of the women by her side said that she had been s*xually abused by prison staff, too. And so had another woman. And another. And another.

“They were like, ‘Screw IDOC. It happened to me too, dude,’” Weiskircher said, referring to the Idaho Department of Correction. “It just started a movement.”

Weiskircher’s complaints inspired other women throughout the jail to file their own, detailing stories of r**e, assault, coercion and s*xual harassment throughout the Idaho prison system. And in the year that followed, those women and dozens more current and former female inmates have come forward to share similar experiences with InvestigateWest, the details of which are being reported here for the first time.

10/15/2025

Idaho limits its definition of s*xual assault when the victim is an inmate. Even though federal standards say all inappropriate touching by prison workers and even suggestive comments or voyeurism are illegal, Idaho’s law only protects inmates from abuse when there's ge***al contact involved.

That narrow definition makes it hard for prosecutors to go after prison staff for s*xual abuse, even when a person seemingly confesses. And even when charges are filed, accused guards are typically offered a plea deal that requires no prison time, while their victims spend years incarcerated for drug offenses, DUIs and parole violations.

10/14/2025

In the summer of 2024, seven women accused Idaho prison workers of s*xually harassing and assaulting them. The allegations spanned decades, took place at women's facilities across Idaho, and was perpetrated by different prison guards, probation officers and commissary contractors.

One thread connects all of the women's claims - none were thoroughly investigated by state police.

“They weren’t there for us,” said Charee Nelson, one of those women.

10/14/2025

The Catholic Diocese of Spokane has suspended a priest for allegedly abusing his position to have "consensual and nonconsensual s*x" with multiple women.

The allegations against Fr. Miguel Mejia include stalking a woman, giving women money and gifts in exchange for s*x, and paying to have phone s*x with a woman in jail, potentially misusing church dollars to do it.

At least five women have come forward, including two who spoke with InvestigateWest. A church review board says there's "overwhelming evidence" to back the allegations, while an accounting firm has separately flagged $97,000 in questionable expenses by the priest. A criminal investigation is ongoing.

Yet many parishioners aren't convinced - and question whether the investigation is the result of a bishop's personal or political beef with a popular priest.

10/13/2025

If they hadn’t met in prison, none of it would have happened like this. On the outside, Jamie Hamilton would have been polite to Derek Stettler, maybe have had “a conversation,” she’d later tell an investigator. It probably would have ended there. She would have avoided years of trauma. He might still be alive.

But Hamilton met Stettler in 2015 at Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center, one of three women’s prisons in Idaho that shield guards like him from consequences for s*xually abusing inmates.