Mother wins right to see record on daughter's suicide

A mother whose teenage daughter committed suicide in 2004 while in state custody was granted access Thursday to a Utah Department of Human Services report on the death.

After hearing testimony from the mother, Debra Langdon, and her attorney as well as department representatives, the Utah State Records Committee ruled that Langdon can see a redacted version of the Fatality Review Report on her daughter.

The decision can be appealed by the department. Spokeswoman Carol Sisco said department officials will review the decision after it's in writing before determining whether to appeal.

Langdon said after the nearly three-hour hearing that she was "happy for the decision today." Her attorney, Wayne Searle, said they still planned to go forward with a wrongful death suit in federal court.

State officials had sought to keep the report classified as protected under the Government Records Access and Management Act, citing a need to keep private the names of individuals providing information about how the department handled the case.

"The subject of that report is DHS, not Ms. Langdon and not her daughter," assistant attorney general Debbie Kurzban told the committee. "Because what that report is looking for is system performance."

But committee member Linda Thatcher, who represents the Division of State History, said that didn't make it clear to her why the mother shouldn't be able to see the record. "You keep saying it's not," Thatcher said. "But it is about a person."

At Thatcher's suggestion, the committee reviewed the actual report in closed session. About 20 minutes later, they reopened the meeting and voted first to reclassify the report as private, which allows the mother to have access but not the public.

Then the committee voted to redact information in the report dealing with "the analysis of systematic issues and recommendations." Sisco said it was not clear how much information would be removed from the report.

Nor, she said, was it clear how the redacted report would differ from versions of the report already available to the public. The public versions are labeled as summaries of the report and do not contain names or other identifying information.

Katherine Langdon, who grew up in East Carbon, was 16 when her body was found by her foster mother in September 2004. She had been placed in foster care in April 2004 by the state Division of Child and Family Services.

In a Deseret Morning News article published last April that detailed five teenage suicides in the Moab area, Katherine Langdon was described as having a chaotic home life, and her foster mother described her as depressed.

Debra Langdon had been trying since the November after her daughter's death to obtain the report, her attorney told the committee. Searle said the department was stalling because it failed to protect Langdon's daughter.

The attorney also questioned how the newspaper obtained information about the suicides. "If the newspaper can get this stuff, why can't the mother?" Searle asked. He said it was not unreasonable for Debra Langdon to request "information about what killed her daughter."

Debra Langdon told the committee that she "freaked out" when she saw her daughter suffer a panic attack but did not know the girl was taking antidepressant drugs. "I had no idea what she was going through."

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