- A family sued an Alabama prison last year, after their son’s body was returned without a heart.
- Another family is stepping up in support of the lawsuit, new court documents show.
- A daughter claims in the docs that her father also was returned to the family without any organs.
Another family is claiming their son’s organs went inexplicably missing after being incarcerated by the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC), court documents viewed by Business Insider show.
Last year, the family of Brandon Clay Dotson sued the Alabama Department of Corrections after the son’s body was returned without a heart, according to the lawsuit. Dotson died inside Ventress Correctional Facility, a state prison, in November, the lawsuit said.
Dotson was returned to the family about five days after his death on November 16, 2023, at the Ventress Correctional Facility “severely decomposed,” according to the Dotson family’s lawsuit.
The family ordered a second autopsy, which is when the family was informed that the “heart was missing from the chest cavity of Mr. Dotson’s body,” the lawsuit alleged.
“The Alabama Department of Corrections — or an agent responsible for conducting the autopsy or transporting the body to his family — had, inexplicably and without the required permission from Mr. Dotson’s next of kin, removed and retained Mr. Dotson’s heart,” the family alleged in the lawsuit.
Dotson's family has yet to find out what happened to their son's heart as the case remains open. And it appears a second family has stepped in to support their legal battle.
Court documents show that Alabama resident Charlene Drake provided written testimony that claims her father's body was also returned to the family with missing organs.
A spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Corrections did not return a request for comment sent outside of working hours.
Drake's father, Charles Edward Singleton, was 74 when he died on November 2, 2021, while incarcerated by the Alabama Department of Corrections, according to her testimony. He received care at "outside hospitals," including the Hamilton Aged and Infirmed Center, an ADOC facility that provides care for old inmates, the testimony said.
"The Chaplain of Hamilton, David Smith, called me on November 2, to tell me that my father Charles had died. Chaplain Smith said that ADOC could take care of the burial arrangements," Drake wrote in the testimony. "I told him absolutely not, and that we wanted to claim the body."
After receiving an autopsy, Singleton was sent to a funeral home about 40 miles east of Birmingham for a family viewing. There, a funeral director would inform the family, about a week after Singleton's death, "that there were no organs in the body," the testimony alleged.
The funeral director "said normally the organs are in a bag placed back in the body after an autopsy, but Charles had been brought to the Funeral Home with no internal organs. His brain had also been removed," the testimony alleged.
Drake said in her written testimony that staff at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where Singleton's autopsy was performed, never explained what happened to her father's organs.
Representatives for UAB didn't respond to Business Insider's request for comment sent outside working hours. In a statement to ABC 33/40 News, a UAB spokesperson declined to comment on "pending litigation."
"In an autopsy, organs and tissues are removed to best determine the cause of death. Autopsy consent includes consent for final disposition of the organs and tissues; unless specifically requested, organs are not returned to the body," the spokesperson wrote to the news outlet.
Lauren Faraino, an attorney representing Dotson's family, did not immediately return a request for comment sent outside of working hours.
In an email to The Associated Press, Faraino wrote that the case Singleton's family shows that this is "absolutely part of a pattern."