Jury Awards Staten Island Family $1M Over Morgue Incident

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Staten Island jury has awarded $1 million to a family that sued the city over a morgue incident.

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, classmates of the victim's sister went on a field trip to the Richmond County Mortuary. They saw a specimen jar containing a brain labeled with Jesse's name.

The next day, the classmates told Jesse's 14-year-old sister. She was a passenger in the car crash that had claimed his life two months earlier.

The family said it had to conduct a second burial.

City lawyer Sheila Rossi expressed sympathy for the family's "tragic loss."

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