Two families have claimed that when the Alabama Department of Corrections returned the bodies of their loved ones who died in prison, they were found to be missing one or more internal organs, court documents show.
When Charles Edward Singleton died at age 74, he was incarcerated at the Hamilton Aged and Infirmed Center in Hamilton, about 90 miles northwest of Birmingham.
The chaplain of the prison told his family the corrections department would take care of funeral arrangements, according to an affidavit signed January 3 by Singleton’s daughter, Charlene Drake.
Drake said she told the chaplain the family wanted to make the arrangements and asked that the body be transported to a funeral home. But when Singleton’s body arrived, the funeral director informed her “it would be difficult to prepare his body for viewing, as his body was already in a noticeable state of decomposition” and his internal organs, including his brain, were missing, the affidavit said.
The funeral director said the organs are normally placed in a bag and put back in the body after an autopsy, but not in Singleton’s case, according to the affidavit.
The Alabama Department of Corrections told CNN it does not comment on pending litigation, nor does it authorize or perform autopsies.
“Once an inmate dies, the body is transported to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences or (the University of Alabama at Birmingham) for autopsy, depending on several factors, including but not limited to region and whether the death is unlawful, suspicious, or unnatural,” the department said in a statement.
Drake’s affidavit was filed in support of a federal lawsuit filed by the family of Brandon Clay Dotson, who was found dead at age 43 in Ventress Correctional Facility in Clayton on November 16, 2023.
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