After going out to celebrate New Year’s Eve, a young Cody woman fell seriously ill, suffering seizures and falling into a coma. The 23-year-old is now recovering, but the cause of the nearly fatal episode remains in dispute.

Kailey Kline believes someone slipped something toxic into her drink that night — potentially antifreeze — and has said she suspects it was an attempt at date rape.

However, after a weekslong investigation, Cody police say they found no conclusive evidence of a poisoning or a crime. In a Friday letter closing out the case, Park County and Prosecuting Attorney Bryan Skoric concluded that Kline’s medical emergency appeared to have stemmed from other factors.

“In summary, nothing from your investigation yielded any evidence that anyone poisoned Ms. Kline,” Skoric wrote to the lead detective on the case.

On Monday, Kline deferred comment to her mother, Amber Espinoza, who disputes the prosecutor’s findings.

“This investigation appears to exhibit confirmation bias and does not sufficiently focus on the thoroughness of the medical records or actual medical team,” Espinoza wrote in an email to the Tribune.

Cody Police Chief Jason Stafford said Monday that he stands by his department’s work, saying they spent a considerable amount of time investigating the case.

A celebration turns tragic

Kline had celebrated New Year’s Eve at Cody’s The Silver Dollar Bar, but after returning home, around 1:30 a.m., she fell seriously ill and began experiencing seizures and struggled to breathe. Kline wound up being intubated and flown to St. Vincent’s Healthcare in Billings.

According to information Kline and Espinoza have shared online, medical personnel in Billings initially had a hard time determining what was wrong with her, but she began to improve after they prophylactically administered fomepizole, an antidote for antifreeze. That, according to Espinoza, led the providers to believe that Kline had been poisoned with the substance.

Kline was eventually discharged on Jan. 6, though she has said she’s still suffering after effects.

The incident has played out in the public eye, largely due to social media posts, a GoFundMe campaign (which resulted in $12,855 in donations) and national media attention.

Inside Edition featured the incident last week, reporting that Kline’s diagnosis was antifreeze poisoning.

“I was roofied,” Kline told the outlet in an interview, saying she suspects she was targeted by a man at the bar that night. Kline told the outlet that the man held her drink.

However, Skoric said in his Friday letter that Cody police “thoroughly interviewed” that man, and “there was simply no motivation for this individual to poison her [Kline] and no evidence to suggest he did.”

Police also reviewed surveillance camera footage from the bar, Skoric said, and “although not conclusive either way, nothing was captured on camera to suggest any tampering of drinks occurred.”

Weighing evidence

Ethylene glycol, the primary ingredient in antifreeze, reportedly has a sweet taste, and Kline told Inside Edition that she believed her drink was “overly sweet.” Skoric noted that antifreeze manufacturers have been adding a bitter-tasting agent to the substance for over a decade to avoid poisoning, while Espinoza countered that there are examples of people unknowingly ingesting antifreeze in spite of the bitterant.

In his letter, Skoric says that Kline was “heavily intoxicated” at the time the ambulance was summoned on Jan. 1, using medical records to estimate that her blood alcohol content was nearly twice the legal limit for driving.

Kline wrote on social media that “there was NOT enough alcohol in my system to cause this incident,” saying she had 1.5 drinks in 2.5 hours at the bar.

Investigators, however, believed that Kline was also taking Wellbutrin. It’s an antidepressant that’s not supposed to be mixed with alcohol, in part because the combination can result in seizures.

A neurologist reportedly wrote in a consultation note that Kline’s seizures and condition likely stemmed from multiple factors, including Kline drinking alcohol, a lowered seizure threshold from taking Wellbutrin, her gastric sleeve and “possible intoxicating substance from a stranger at the bar.”

However, Espinoza said her daughter was not actually taking Wellbutrin at the time.

“... medical records indicate that Kailey [Kline’s] Wellbutrin prescription had not been filled and was prescribed over a year ago, raising questions about its potential impact on her condition at the time of the incident,” Espinoza wrote.

She also said blood work didn’t find any prescription medication or other drugs in Kline’s system. Though a test for ethylene glycol was performed too late for a conclusive result, Espinoza said lab tests did find “trace amounts.” 

Kline also “had additional abnormal lab [values] that substantiated this diagnosis” of a poisoning, Espinoza said.

However, a medical examiner consulted by Cody police reportedly said he would have expected to see “a high anion gap” — a measurement of acidity in the bloodstream — if such a poisoning had occurred. No such abnormalities showed up in the results, Skoric wrote, but Espinoza said it only would have if Kline had ingested a “significant” amount of ethylene glycol.

For his part, the examiner reportedly suggested Kline would have had to consume a large amount of antifreeze for it to become toxic; alcohol (or ethanol) is an antidote to ethylene glycol, and the drinks she’d consumed that night would have caused the substance to pass through her system, Skoric’s letter says.

Back and forth

Roughly an hour after Skoric sent out his declination letter, The Silver Dollar Bar posted a statement to Facebook about the incident. It said in part that the bar takes “extensive measures to maintain a safe environment.”

“Our commitment has always been and will continue to be the safety and well-being of our customers,” the statement said.

The Silver Dollar Bar’s post also said that law enforcement’s investigation “found no evidence to substantiate the allegation” of Kline’s drink being spiked with antifreeze and accused her of changing her story and visiting other bars before the Dollar.

Kline and her mother pushed back online, saying her statements had remained consistent and that the Dollar had been her only stop that night.

In one post, Kline suggested she had been slandered. 

Espinoza said Monday that the way the case was investigated and incorrect statements made on The Silver Dollar’s Facebook page had resulted in Kline being harassed and bullied.

Espinoza told the Tribune Monday that police overlooked critical information about Kline’s health and diagnoses. For example, she said police never interviewed her or the physicians or nurses who tended to her daughter, which led “to a skewed understanding of the events.”

Kline and the community deserve “a higher standard of thoroughness in investigative cases,” Espinoza said.

Police Chief Stafford, however, praised the “great job” done by his personnel.

“It was a thorough investigation,” Stafford said. “We did a bunch of interviews, we looked at a bunch of video, and there’s nothing there that proves any type of incident actually happened.”