Upon his death while in the care of the Alabama prison, a man was allegedly returned to his family without any of his vital organs, including his brain.
The story surfaced earlier this week, and this is the second instance in as many weeks involving claims of missing body parts from inmates in Alabama jails, according to The Guardian. Many people feel that prisoners in the United States prison system are treated poorly.
Returned Without Brain
In November 2021, Charles Edward Singleton passed away, per ABC 33/40 TV in Birmingham. He was a resident of the state's Hamilton Aged and Infirmed prison facility. A member of Singleton's family told the television station that the University of Alabama's pathology department conducted an autopsy on the corpse after he passed away.
The family of Singleton asked that his remains be sent to a mortuary in Pell City, which is about two hours distant. The head of the funeral home reportedly warned Singleton's family members that the body was in such a bad condition of decay that it would be impossible to get it ready for viewing and that there was even advanced skin slippage.
ABC 33/40 studied court documents that state that Singleton's family was notified that he had no organs left and that his brain had been taken. Additionally, his family was advised that, after autopsies, it is common practice to place the organs in a bag and then reinsert them inside bodies.
Singleton's family asked the University of Alabama to return his organs but claimed they never got them.
Regarding the ongoing lawsuit, the University of Alabama chose not to respond. But it guaranteed in a statement that it follows standard procedures fairly to those who agreed to or requested an autopsy and that it only performs autopsies with permission or authority.
Returned Without Heart
In a similar case, an inmate named Brandon Clay Dotson passed away in jail last November, and his family is still trying to figure out what happened to his heart.
After Dotson passed away, his mother and sister attempted to claim his corpse for five days. Upon his subsequent return, they noted "bruising on the back of [his] neck and excessive swelling across his head," as reported by Fox News.
Since the family did not obtain a death certificate and did not know how Dotson died, they reportedly hired their own doctor to perform an autopsy.
Dotson allegedly had a missing heart inside his chest cavity, according to the lawsuit that Fox News examined. The statement continued by saying that the plaintiff had a reasonable belief that Dotson's heart was taken for an illegal purpose, such as to send it to the University of Alabama to provide students with a lab specimen to experiment on.
A representative from the university denied any involvement in the matter. Nevertheless, Dotson's relatives have demanded a record of all organs taken or kept from inmates who have passed away in state prisons since 2013.
