Brandon Dotson: Deceased Alabama prison inmate's body handed over to family with heart missing
HUNTSVILLE, ALBAMA: According to a federal complaint submitted on Thursday, the family of a deceased prisoner received the body of their loved one back in a decomposing state, with the heart missing.
The family of deceased Brandon Clay Dotson, who reportedly died on November 16, has accused the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) or any other agency that handled the body of stealing their loved one's heart and treating his body disrespectfully, according to Alabama Political Reporter.
What does Brandon Dotson's family say?
When the outlet spoke with Brandon's brother Robert Dotson, he stated that Ventress Correctional Facility warden Karen Williams had told him that Brandon had either died or appeared like he was not going to make it.
He recalled clearly asking Williams whether his brother had been beaten, and the warden appeared shocked that he had even thought of asking. Robert claimed that Williams' "disturbing" response would stay with him "forever".
Williams asked him if the family wanted to claim the body, and Robert said he moved the conversation along. He further added that to retrieve Brandon's body, their mother Audrey South gave Williams a call.
Additionally, South informed Williams that she did not want Brandon's body to be handled or examined, but Williams insisted that an autopsy was necessary because Brandon was on state property.
Five days later, on November 21, the family finally received Brandon's body, which was in the process of decomposing, according to the funeral home that received it. This resulted in the family having to have a closed-casket funeral on November 25.
“On a scale of one to 10, the decomposing of the body was an eight,” Robert claimed a funeral home representative told him.
Dr Boris Datnow narrated the delay in Brandon Dotson's body
In addition, the deceased's mother had engaged Dr Boris Datnow, an autopsy pathologist, to conduct a follow-up autopsy once the family obtained the body. When South contacted Datnow a week after the funeral to inquire about the autopsy, Datnow told her that he was unable to finish the autopsy due to Brandon's missing heart.
The complaint stated, “Plaintiffs suspected foul play. In part because of the Alabama Department of Corrections’ extensive and ongoing violations of basic human and constitutional rights, so they retained Dr Boris Datnow, an autopsy pathologist, to conduct a second autopsy of Mr Dotson’s body."
It further stated, "Upon conducting the autopsy, Dr Datnow discovered that the heart was missing from the chest cavity of Mr Dotson’s body. 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.”
Brandon was eligible for parole on the day he died, but according to the hearing minutes from that day, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Parole refused him parole.
While Brandon's exact date of death is unknown, it's possible that the Board of Pardons and Parole once more refused to grant parole to a deceased man.
ADOC accused of gang violence
As per the lawsuit, ADOC, the Alabama Department of Forensics, or a medical school affiliated with the University of Alabama Systems are among the organizations that most likely had contact with the body. In the complaint, each of them is named as a defendant.
The ADOC itself, Commissioner Jon Hamm, Chief Deputy Commissioner of Corrections Greg Lovelace, Ventress Warden Karen Williams, ten supervisory officers, ten correctional officers, medical provider YesCare, and numerous staff members are among the defendants in the lawsuit against the prison.
The lawsuit mentions the appalling conditions in ADOC facilities, the overcrowding and understaffing of prisons, and Brandon's complaint that he was exposed to gang violence and that ADOC had failed to assist him. Defendants in the lawsuit also include director Angelo Dello Manna and the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.
The lawsuit states that when someone dies in ADOC custody, the ADFS is in charge of performing autopsies.
In the end, the lawsuit names 20 members of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine (UABSOM), the University of Alabama System, and the University of Alabama Health Services Foundation (UAHSF) as defendants.
UABSOM uses organs and tissues to instruct medical students, and UAHSF helps the Department of Forensics with autopsies. According to the lawsuit, UABSOM students discovered in 2018 that a large number of the organs they were using for medical training came from people who were behind bars.
Students discovered worse organ conditions in pulmonary lab
The students noticed that the conditions of many of the organs were noticeably worse than those of others, indicating medical neglect that was probably caused by incarceration.
According to the complaint, the students even forced an administrator to acknowledge that one-third of the organs came from prisoners.
The complaint read, “An administrator admitted that 1/3 of the samples in the pulmonary lab are from incarcerated individuals. Based on this admission and other information, the UABSOM Students concluded that incarcerated people are 50 times more likely to represent teaching samples than non-incarcerated individuals.”
In the lawsuit, the family is demanding that Brandon's heart be given back to them along with any money earned from his illegal organ retention.
The complaint further read, “Defendants’ outrageous and inexcusable mishandling of the deceased’s body amounts to a reprehensible violation of human dignity and common decency."
"Their depraved indifference in returning the body bereft of vital organs and in a revolting state of decay shows utter contempt for the deceased’s memory and for the profound emotional distress wantonly inflicted upon the Plaintiff," it added.
"No civilized society can tolerate such a barbaric desecration of the dead. That Defendants had the audacity to ransack the body and convert its parts for their own selfish gain only compounds the egregiousness of their conduct. Their brazen theft and exploitation of the helpless deceased shocks the conscience,” the complaint read further.
