Hospital failures, biased court advocates and buried teacher misconduct — a year in investigative reporting in Washington

In 2025, InvestigateWest reporters broke stories that continue to resonate across Washington communities, from reporting that exposed a Spokane hospital’s safety violations that endangered suicidal patients to teacher misconduct allegations kept quiet by Mercer Island School District.  

Check out some of our best reporting about Washington this year: 

Girl’s suicide at Spokane hospital follows controversial closure of psych unit

When Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, Spokane’s largest hospital, closed its youth psychiatric unit, experts and former employees told InvestigateWest that removing a critical inpatient treatment option would have dire consequences. Only three months later, a 12-year-old girl, Sarah Niyimbona, died by suicide after she was left unsupervised at the hospital and was able to walk to the fourth floor of a parking structure and jump off — a tragedy that critics of the psych unit’s closure said was their worst fears realized. The story of Sarah’s death was broken by InvestigateWest reporters Kaylee Tornay and Whitney Bryen, and it triggered a lawsuit and then a state investigation that found Sacred Heart had also endangered three other suicidal patients that year.  

Guardians ad litem are supposed to protect kids, but the role can be abused 

When custody battles and family court cases become contentious, many Washington courts look to neutral third parties, known as guardians ad litem, to advocate for the best interest of children involved. But InvestigateWest’s Kelsey Turner found those court-appointed evaluators often aren’t required to have professional licenses or mental health expertise, yet can have an outsized influence in cases. In the case of one woman who had been granted a domestic violence protection order against her ex-husband and custody of their kids, a guardian ad litem helped paint a misleading narrative that the mother was the dangerous abuser in the relationship.

Lawmaker who vowed to speak for incarcerated people supported funding cuts to legal aid organizations

In the 2025 legislative session, facing a budget crisis, lawmakers cut funding for organizations that have been working to vacate unconstitutional drug convictions in Washington. Reporter Moe Clark obtained public records showing that the cuts were supported by an unlikely source: Rep. Tarra Simmons, the state’s first formerly incarcerated lawmaker who was thought to be a champion of other formerly incarcerated people. 

Old abandoned ships are an environmental hazard — and expensive problem for states 

What happens when it’s time for the government to retire an old ship? In many cases, it turns out, former military vessels and other boats are purchased at auction by private parties — then later abandoned when the owners realize massive vessels are too costly and difficult to fix. Reporter Aspen Ford looked at how the largely unregulated process of selling surplus government property has resulted in abandoned ships and marine pollution while costing states millions in cleanup costs. In Washington, which is expected to spend nearly $715 million to build a new fleet of hybrid-electric ferries, the state has had to halt the sale of an old diesel ferry amid questions about whether the sale would violate hazardous waste treaties. 

Teacher sexual misconduct kept quiet in Mercer Island 

In 2016, Mercer Island High School got an anonymous tip that an English and journalism teacher at Mercer Island High School, Gary “Chris” Twombley, was having an inappropriate relationship with a student. But the school didn’t take it seriously until seven years later, when a second former student came forward accusing Twombley of predatory behavior. InvestigateWest’s Moe Clark, in collaboration with the Mercer Island Reporter, uncovered how the school district kept the allegations quiet until Twombley’s resignation in February 2025. And as Clark reported in subsequent stories, Twombley wasn’t the only Mercer Island teacher with allegations of sexual misconduct buried by the school district. 

Snoqualmie takes victim in unsolved rape case to court over her demands for accountability

A woman in Snoqualmie, a suburb of Seattle, reported being brutally raped to police. As years went by without the case being solved, the woman sent increasingly angry and at times vulgar messages to Snoqualmie police and city officials, looking for justice. Instead of finding it, the city turned the law against her, InvestigateWest’s Kelsey Turner reported. 

Native American drivers continue to be searched by state troopers more than others

In 2019, an InvestigateWest data analysis found that Washington State Patrol troopers searched Native American drivers far more than whites. It led to calls for change and demands for answers. But five years later, another analysis by InvestigateWest editor Wilson Criscione and reporter Melanie Henshaw found that the disparities have not been reduced — in fact, they have increased since 2020.