By Al Camp
Chronicle staff

     OKANOGAN - A Carlton couple received a temporary restraining order June 25 after filing a complaint for injunctive relief to stop Okanogan County from releasing documents to the Wenatchee World concerning the death of their son.
     Gregory and Garnet Swezey filed the complaint in Okanogan County Superior Court against the county prosecutor and Okanogan County.
     Judge Jack Burchard granted the temporary order. He will hear further arguments July 13.
     Also filed was a motion for immediate temporary injunction and an order to show cause.
     The Swezeys contacted the sheriff's office March 18 concerning the death of their 17-year-old son, Zachery Cole Swezey, at their home on South Fork Gold Creek Loop.
     Zachery Swezey was a junior at Pateros High School. An earlier Chronicle story listed the cause of death as a burst appendix.
     The sheriff's office began and continues an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death, the complaint said.
     "No formal charges have been filed, but the plaintiffs have learned the Okanogan County prosecuting attorney's office and the sheriff's office continue in their investigation and a charging decision has not yet been made," the filing said.
     The family, which belongs to the Church of the First Born, was with the boy when he died. The non-denominational church believes in "faith healing," the complaint said.
     Those investigating the death included deputy Josh Brown, who was first to respond, prosecutor Felecia Chandler, who was working as coroner the day of the death, and Sgt. Gene Davis, who was called to the scene by Brown.
     Chandler ordered an autopsy.
     The plaintiffs learned in a June 16 letter from deputy prosecutor Stephen Bozarth that a Wenatchee World reporter asked for any and all police reports, coroner reports and autopsy results stemming from Zachery Swezey's death.
      Bozarth told the reporter that autopsy records are privileged by state law and denied that part of the request, the letter said.
     The Swezeys were told by Bozarth that the coroner, police reports and other file material sought by the reporter would be turned over to the Wenatchee World under the Washington Public Disclosure Act unless a court issued an order against such.
     "If highly intimate details of our lives, including the nature of our son's unpleasant illness and our religious faith, are spread before the public gaze, it will cause me great emotional damage which cannot be taken back," Garnet Swezey wrote, noting she felt the family's religious faith to be a private matter. "Once private matters are released to the public, they cannot be made private again."
     The plaintiffs alleged that such information relating to the death of their son was not subject to disclosure under state law. They said such information constituted "investigative records" and were exempt from public disclosure.
     Sloan and Hammett made inquiries with the prosecutor's office and were told the sheriff's office was continuing to investigate the death, and "the matter would be turned over to the prosecutor to make a charging decision," court records said.
     The complaint said some of the requested material was part of the deliberative process, making it exempt from disclosure.
     "The release of all of this material to the public at this time not only will cause severe emotional distress to the plaintiffs herein, but the material may well not be subject to release," the motion said.
     The Swezeys say disclosure of the information to the newspaper would compromise and negatively impact the justice process or trial process or fair trial should the completion of the ongoing investigation result in a filing of a criminal charge, the complaint said.
     The motion said at least one e-mail was in the requested material that appeared to be "work product" with a communication between Chandler and law enforcement.
     The motion noted the newspaper is circulated throughout the region and publication of a story could impact jurors all over the region, not just Omak and Okanogan.
     "The parents, plaintiffs herein, continue to incur severe emotional distress regarding their son's death," the motion said. "The disclosure of these materials would cause additional and unnecessary distress to the parents at this time."