The investigation into the carbon monoxide death of a student at The Evergreen State College is expected to be released next week, the president of the four-year school told the board of trustees on Friday.
It has been three months since Jonathan Rodriguez died, President John Carmichael said, adding that the Washington State Patrol's investigation is forthcoming.
State Patrol spokesman Chris Loftis confirmed the announcement on Friday, but said the report will not be released before Wednesday. The release of the investigation, which was undertaken by a forensic engineering company, has been complicated by the recent death of a state trooper, he said.
Trooper Christopher Gadd, 27, was killed the morning of March 2 after being struck by a motorist on southbound Interstate 5 near Marysville, the agency announced.
The trooper's funeral procession will take place Tuesday and then the investigation should be released in the middle or late in the week, Loftis said.
Rodriguez, 21, of DuPont, died Dec. 11 from exposure to carbon monoxide. Two other students, a 20-year-old woman and a 19-year-old woman, were hospitalized from exposure to the gas, but have since been released, The Olympian has reported.
The incident happened in Evergreen's modular housing. A student residence manager couldn't reach the three students inside the housing, so an Evergreen police officer entered the unit and ended up attempting to revive the students. The officer was poisoned by carbon monoxide as well, and was treated at the hospital, according to The Olympian.
The board of trustees voted in January to spend as much as $1 million to pay for costs tied to the student's death.
The money will be used to cover some or all of the cost of the State Patrol investigation, the cost to relocate students into other housing, and to make repairs to campus housing, President Carmichael previously said.
Loftis couldn't immediately speak to why Evergreen would pick up those costs and not the State Patrol.
During the board meeting, chairwoman Karen Fraser shared some thoughts about Rodriguez.
"We remain in shock and sorrow over his untimely death on campus and we grieve for him and his family and his close friends," she said.
Fraser told the board that Rodriguez received a nice tribute in the most recent issue of the Cooper Point Journal, the student newspaper.
She quoted from a poem about Rodriguez. His favorite plant was the Begonia and the poem uses the Begonia as a metaphor for his life.
"In Begonia's presence, one left feeling rejuvenated, feeling joyous, feeling filled with the light, the air, the water, the love, flowing around it, flowing within it," Fraser said.
