After Blair’s autopsy was completed, his family met with Chesterfield County Coroner Kip Kiser and SLED investigators. Reporting confirms the family was told to turn off their phones because investigators did not want details of the active SLED investigation made public. Reporter Jody Barr separately reported that the family told him Kiser physically took their phones so they could not record the meeting and asked them not to discuss the autopsy. That physical-taking claim is the family’s allegation and has not been independently established. What has been established is already extraordinary enough: A former Chesterfield sheriff was convicted of eight public-corruption counts. Senior officers from that era remained part of the county’s law-enforcement story for years. Federal detainee lawsuits later alleged deprivation of food, water, sanitation and medical care inside the jail. The jail’s own chief deputy says it repeatedly failed state inspections. Multiple Chesterfield law-enforcement officers have been charged with misconduct in separate SLED investigations. The current sheriff was himself investigated after a secret recording captured him discussing efforts to get attempted-murder charges dropped, though that investigation did not produce charges against him. The Sheriff’s Office later became embroiled in a public-record dispute involving the same judicial circuit where the sheriff’s wife works as an assistant solicitor. And now Gary “Bubba” Blair is dead. Cause of death: deprivation of water. Manner: homicide. SLED’s investigation remains open, and reporting says the Fourth Circuit has conflicted the Blair matter out so another prosecutorial authority can ultimately review the findings.