A popular influencer has won her legal battle to keep some of the most horrific details about her young son’s death shielded from the public.
Emilie Kiser successfully petitioned to have two pages of a police report regarding the drowning of her three-year-old son Trigg in the family’s pool redacted, with a judge supporting her request on Friday.
Trigg, often featured in the content of the mother of two, passed away nearly a week after being found unresponsive in their backyard pool on May 12.
Kiser’s husband, Brady, was at home at the time – but was preoccupied with the couple’s newborn, Theodore, during the hellish moments Trigg drowned.
Brady is not facing criminal charges. Emilie was out of the house during the tragedy.
The Maricopa County Superior Court has now ruled in Kiser’s favor, stating that the ‘details in the challenged sections are unnecessary for public scrutiny.’
This decision is based on the fact that the information would merely ‘indulge in morbid curiosity’ and ‘pose a threat of misuse by unsavory parties,’ according to the ruling accessed by Daily Mail.
Kiser persuaded the judge that releasing the detailed account of her son Trigg’s tragic incident could lead social media users to create viral AI recreations of the event.
Emilie, 26, who has more than 4 million followers on TikTok and 1.7 million on Instagram, has not posted publicly since her son’s death
Pictured: Emilie Kiser with her three-year-old son, Trigg. The little boy drowned in the family’s pool on May 12
She expressed concern that, akin to other unsettling recreations of recent incidents such as the Idaho college students’ murders circulating on TikTok, there was a risk of her family’s misfortune being sensationalized as well.
The unredacted police report included a moment-by-moment written depiction of officer bodycam footage that captured Trigg’s death – which the court said was so thorough that it ‘functions as a surrogate for the video itself.’
Its contents are of a ‘vivid and granular nature,’ making it so ’emotionally disturbing’ that shielding it from the public is wholly justified, the ruling stated.
The court declared on Friday: ‘Specific material harm to her and her family outweighs the negligible public interest in those particular portions of the report.
‘The narrow redaction of those sections strikes an appropriate balance between transparency and human dignity.’
Celebrating the small win, Emilie Kiser’s attorney, Shannon Clark, told Daily Mail: ‘We’re grateful to Judge Whitten for carefully balancing the important interests at stake and allowing a narrow but meaningful redaction to the Chandler police report, removing two pages that detail the graphic final moments of Trigg’s life.
‘These redactions do not alter any material facts of the accident, but they protect the dignity of a little boy whose memory should reflect the love and light he brought to the world.
Emilie’s lawyer told Daily Mail: ‘This decision allows them, and the public, to remember him for the beautiful life he lived, not the tragic way it ended’
‘From the start, this has been about protecting Trigg and the family’s ability to grieve privately.
‘This decision allows them, and the public, to remember him for the beautiful life he lived, not the tragic way it ended.’
The 55-page police report will be released in the coming days without the two and a quarter pages that Emilie fought to keep out.
It will still describe the events, timeline, witness accounts, and law enforcement conclusions following Trigg Kiser’s untimely death.
