Days after a 17-year-old died while working at a hog farm owned by Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen’s family, Boone County’s attorney knew Zach Panther’s mother would seek independent lab tests to determine what had killed her son — an effort the prosecutor seemed supportive of.

John Morgan wrote an email on the family’s behalf to the medical lab performing Zach’s autopsy a week after the teen was found collapsed at the farm outside his hometown of St. Edward on April 1, 2024. Morgan told the lab Zach’s mother “would like all medical samples from the autopsy to be preserved for independent analysis.”

But when Zach’s mother sought to have a blood sample tested in October 2025, Morgan made a different decision. The county attorney, without explanation, denied her request to release the sample for independent testing, even though lengthy investigations, including one by his own office, had failed to determine why Zach died.

Zach’s death remains a mystery following federal and state investigations that were hampered by missteps, The New York Times and the Flatwater Free Press found. 

And Morgan’s denial left Justy Riggs-Panther without access to her son’s remains for medical testing that could potentially solve that mystery.

 Until earlier this month, when Boone County’s new county attorney — again without explanation — reversed her predecessor’s decision and signaled a willingness to send Zach’s samples off for independent testing. 

In a letter to Riggs-Panther dated Jan. 6, Boone County Attorney Abbey DeBoyes asked which medical samples she needed and what lab to send them to.

“I'm so grateful,” Riggs-Panther said in a phone interview as she thumbed through the documents DeBoyes had sent her, topped by the letter greenlighting the testing that may help determine what led to Zach’s death.

In September 2024, a medical officer helping to investigate Zach’s death for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration wrote that she suspected the 17-year-old had died from an immune response to a chemical in a spray foam. Zach had been using the foam without a respirator the day he died to seal up cracks in a barn at Beaver Valley Pork, one of the nearly 100 farms owned by Pillen Family Farms.

But when Zach’s mother sought independent testing to confirm that suspicion last fall, Morgan stonewalled her, she said. When the pathologist who performed Zach’s autopsy emailed the prosecutor asking for the release of the samples, Morgan never responded, according to emails reviewed by the Flatwater Free Press.

“(He) wouldn't answer, wouldn't respond to emails,” said Riggs-Panther, who said Morgan’s decision to withhold her son’s body tissue made her think differently about the fruitless investigations to determine Zach’s cause of death.

“I'm still dealing with my son not being here, and I have to find a way to live without him and everything that is,” she said. “Why, suddenly, is nobody talking? Why, suddenly, is nobody being helpful?”

Then, in November, another unexpected death complicated the Boone County case: Morgan’s own. 

The one-time Creighton basketball player, girls’ basketball coach and longtime prosecutor died on Nov. 11, according to his obituary. He was 76.

After Boone County tabbed a new prosecutor, Riggs-Panther tried again. She sent DeBoyes an email on Jan. 5 seeking records from her son’s death investigation – a request that had earlier been denied – as well as the release of the tissue samples Morgan had declined to approve.

The county’s response came days later in the mail: more than two dozen pages of notes that Riggs-Panther had never seen from Boone County Sheriff’s Office and Nebraska State Patrol investigators, as well as the letter from DeBoyes inquiring about where to send Zach’s samples.

It’s unclear why Morgan had denied the test in the first place. None of the emails his office sent Riggs-Panther denying her request for investigative reports, photos or the medical samples include a rationale. 

DeBoyes declined to answer questions, saying, “I have nothing to add beyond my letter.”

Five attorneys, including two prosecutors elsewhere in Nebraska and two lawyers who have litigated wrongful death cases, said it seemed unusual for a prosecutor to withhold tissue samples, especially with no criminal charges pending.

In Lancaster County, Pat Condon, the top prosecutor since 2017, said such a request had never come across his desk. Colfax County Attorney Bruce Prenda said his office “would work with families” who sought independent autopsies or other tests at their own expense.

“I don’t know what the motivation would be for denying something like that,” said Terry Salerno, a personal injury attorney in Omaha. “It seems like a very reasonable request.”

In Zach’s case, the test could help determine whether he had an immune response to the polyurethane foam he had sprayed before he died. The foam contains a hazardous chemical compound called isocyanate that people can become sensitized to after they inhale it.

Eight experts — toxicologists, pulmonologists and other specialists — who independently reviewed the OSHA and autopsy reports also told The New York Times the most likely explanation for Zach’s death was a reaction to the foam.

His mother is hoping an independent analysis will confirm their suspicions — or not.

“Either way, I think it's necessary information,” she said. “I don't think we can stop here.”

This story includes previous reporting from Yanxi Xu, a Flatwater Free Press senior reporter and current New York Times local investigations fellow. 

The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraska’s first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.