Prosecutor undecided on charging Brady Kiser for son’s drowning death

Earlier this week, the Chandler Police Department recommended that Brady Kiser, the husband of influencer Emilie Kiser, be charged with felony child abuse over the May drowning death of the couple’s 3-year-old son, Trigg, in their backyard pool

Charging decisions reside with the county attorney, however. At a Thursday press conference, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said she is still weighing whether to criminally charge Brady Kiser.

“We’re in the process of reviewing it," Mitchell said. "It’s going to take some time.”

In mid-May, Brady Kiser called 911 after he found Trigg floating in the pool while his wife was away. He told police that he saw his son playing near the pool, but lost sight of him for three to five minutes while caring for his youngest son, Theodore. Six days later, Trigg died.

Due to Emilie Kiser’s massive social media following — she has roughly four million followers on TikTok — the circumstances of Trigg’s death have generated outsized scrutiny. Citing privacy concerns, Emilie Kiser sued to prevent some records related to her son’s death from being released to the public. If her husband is charged, however, more records may become public.

After “a thorough review of the evidence,” Chandler police recommended Brady Kiser be charged with class 4 felony child abuse, which can carry up to three years in prison. According to the Arizona Republic, police executed a warrant to confiscate home security footage in order to confirm his version of events. Notably, the Kiser’s pool does not appear to have been enclosed by a fence, which is required in Chandler.

Phoenix New Times has requested the police incident report and Form IV from both Chandler police and the county attorney’s office but has yet to receive them.

On Thursday, Mitchell avoided speaking about the Kiser case specifically, but noted that "not every tragedy is a crime." In child drowning cases, she said, "criminal negligence is what we’re looking for" and that her investigators must establish there was "a substantial and unjustified risk" to the child. In charging decisions, she also has to weigh the likelihood of winning a conviction, she said.

That's particularly true in child drownings, Mitchell said, adding that juries are likely to view a distraught parent sympathetically. However, Mitchell said her office has prosecuted and convicted the parent of a drowned child before.

The decision to charge parents after the drowning of their child is rare, according to the Republic. Glendale police spokesperson Stg. Bryan Hoskin, whose department is not involved in the case, told the paper that police tend to seek charges only in cases of extreme negligence, such as when a parent is intoxicated or when there’s evidence that a parent wanted a child to drown.

Unfortunately, Trigg is not the only person — or even child in Chandler — who has died after drowning this year. According to Children’s Safety Zone, there have already been 21 fatal drownings in the Valley this year.