In internal complaints, emails and other documents, pathologists, investigators and other coroner employees detailed how procurement interfered with their work.
Despite the Los Angeles County coroner’s insistence that harvesting body parts hasn’t harmed investigations, internal documents show that morgue employees have raised concerns for years about procurements of tissues and organs.
Last year Lucas had told The Times that in the opinion of him and his staff, no criminal investigation or cause-of-death finding had been impeded by the procurement of body parts before autopsies in the county. Upon learning the company could not document the bullet’s location, Mario Sainz, an investigator, added in the written notes, “This is a good example why we shouldn’t allow harvesting on homicides!!!”
Reporters made requests in February 2018 using the state’s public records law for all written complaints from coroner staff about organ or tissue procurements. In answer to those requests, officials provided six complaints before The Times published its stories last year.Recently coroner officials said they had found 16 additional complaints that should have been previously provided to the newspaper.
Sathyavagiswaran, then the chief medical examiner-coroner, wrote in an internal email to other county officials and a OneLegacy employee, “I have always advised our staff — No SKIN / BONES ARE TO BE PROCURED ON HOMICIDE/TRAUMA CASES. Can we talk to the DME who approved it,” using shorthand for deputy medical examiner.
“External examination is limited by the organ procurement, which has involved bilateral lower extremities and removal of a large section of skin and soft tissue from the back,” wrote Julie Huss-Bawab, an associate deputy medical examiner.
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