U.S. Jury Awards Family $1M Over Son's Brain in Jar

NEW YORK-- A jury has awarded $1 million to a family that sued New York City after learning that their dead son's brain was on display at the city morgue.

Relatives of 17-year-old Jesse Jerome Shipley say they learned through a macabre coincidence in 2005 that the medical examiner's office had kept his brain and other organ parts for testing.

According to the Staten Island Advance newspaper, classmates of the victim's sister saw a specimen jar containing a brain labeled with Jesse's name during a field trip to the Richmond County Mortuary.

The 14-year-old sister had been a passenger in the car crash that had killed him two months earlier.

The family said it had to conduct a second burial for the brain.
City lawyer Sheila Rossi expressed sympathy for the family's "tragic loss."