Butler County Coroner William Young III hadn’t planned to attend then-candidate President Donald Trump’s rally July 13 at the Butler Farm Show grounds.

Because of the 90-degree forecast, he intended to stay home, watching media coverage of the rally. With the rest of the nation, he learned from media reports at least one person had died after Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate Trump.

Young knew he would be getting a call. He just didn’t know when.

The coroner, Young explained, is always on call and doesn’t get paid time or holidays off. He said he has had to leave more events than he could remember throughout his career because his phone rang with someone needing his services.

“I haven’t taken a vacation since 2016,” Young said.

Young, 65, will retire as coroner Jan. 6 following the election of his successor, a decision that will be impacted by the May 20 primary election, which features three Republican candidates.

He plans to continue as the funeral director at Young Funeral Home in Butler and maintain cemeteries in West Sunbury and Prospect.

The coroner’s office has a salaried chief deputy and three deputy coroners, and multiple special deputies paid per call to help him retrieve bodies. As a county row office, it budgeted $859,483 in 2024. Young said the coroner’s salary was raised from $73,500 to $86,710 in 2021 to align with the other row officer’s salaries.

As a fourth-generation funeral home director and second-generation coroner, Young remembers the men of his family going with his father — who served in the role as coroner for 30 years — to retrieve bodies from scenes on holidays so the coroner’s employees could have the night off.

Young embraced the sentiment of not burdening his employees with late-night calls, and he said some emergency responders are willing to help in their place.

“I’ve picked up several people on Christmas before,” said Young, a Republican, who was first elected in 2000.

The call on July 13 came around midnight.

His task was to transport the body of Corey Comperatore, the former Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire chief who died from a gunshot wound while protecting his family during the shooting. Young said he moved Comperatore from a tent under the bleachers and into the coroner’s van for the trip to the Allegheny County Office of the Medical Examiner.

His decision to take the trip to Pittsburgh, instead of the morgue space in Butler County, was to divert media attention.

“We’re always trying to protect the families in any way, and the deceased at the same time,” Young said.

Butler County’s morgue is at Young Funeral Home on West Jefferson Street, which Young operates with his two sisters and niece. The county rents the morgue space which is separate from the coroner’s office on Woody Drive in Pullman Square. Young said the morgue will move to the coroner’s office within the next six months.

Young’s family has also operated the William F. Young Funeral Home in West Sunbury since 1896. Young’s sister Robin was Butler County’s first female funeral director, he said.

Young was driving back from Pittsburgh to the Butler Farm Show grounds to pick up the body of the shooter, Crooks, when police stalled him. They were searching for rumored explosives in Crooks’ car. When no explosives were found, he proceeded to the scene.

Young said he is used to adapting on coroner calls.

Some scenes are straightforward. The deceased can be loaded into a body bag and transported to the morgue.

But circumstances can make other scenes challenging. He said he’s had to recover bodies discovered after a week of searching — confined by obstacles or covered by debris.

Young may call upon another deputy or use a lift if the bodies are heavy, but he said first responders or nursing staff on the scene are sometimes willing to help.

Young also helps police with drug investigations through the autopsies he authorizes and observes. He said autopsies are conducted in every overdose death so police may be able to link the death back to the dealer to charge them with homicide.

“It’s not a clean job … somebody can be upside down in a creek, and you have to go in the creek to get them,” Young said.

Young was called back to the Butler Farm Show grounds around 6 a.m. to retrieve Crooks’ body.

Police don’t disturb the body until the coroner arrives, so Young had to climb the roof using a firefighter’s ladder — the same ladder he used to slide the body bag to the ground.

It was time to return to Pittsburgh.

Despite the trauma surrounding the July 13 rally, Young doesn’t consider it a landmark call in his career.

The cases he counts as “the bad ones” involve the deaths of children and reactions of their traumatized parents.

He said he’s responded to multiple calls for babies who died in their sleep, which are normally classified as Sudden Unexplained Infant Deaths.

“They’re mournful,” Young said. “That’s the worst of this whole ordeal.”

The Sudden Unexplained Infant Death classification is a type of natural death, so no autopsies are conducted. Those who die at a crime scene or of a suspicious nature do require an autopsy.

Comperatore and Crooks both required autopsies, Young said.

The office was notified of 1,650 deaths in 2023 and responded to about 211 coroner calls, according to Young’s annual report. The office approved about 1,060 cremation authorizations and approved 113 autopsies performed by a forensic pathologist called from Allegheny County.

The autopsy uncovers the cause and manner of death. Both are required for the coroner to sign the death certificate. That certificate, Young said, is critical for family members and funeral homes documenting a death.

Comperatore and Crooks both died of homicide via a gunshot would to the head, according to the coroner’s office.

Young said he was awake for 48 hours surrounding July 13 mass shooting, reminding him of his bad back and the job’s demanding nature.

“I’m able to retire, and I’ve been doing this for a freaking lifetime … I’m not saying you get a call, but if you get a call, you got to be ready,” Young said.