Grieving Family Gets Brain of Dead Relative Sent to Them by Funeral Home

Jan. 7, 2010 — -- A New Mexico family is suing two funeral homes after their deceased relative's brain was included in a bag of her personal effects.

"A brain is not what you'd expect with the return of personal effects, which included the clothing she was wearing at the time of her death and the jewelry she had on," said Richard Valle, the New Mexico-based attorney representing the family, only identified by initials in the lawsuit.

The family did not want to be named in order to "minimize disruption" to their lives, according to the court documents. They declined requests for an interview.

The dead woman reportedly died in a car crash in Utah in September.

Valle said that sometime during the process of transporting her body from Utah to New Mexico for burial, her brain was put in a plastic bag, labeled "brain" and later given to the family.

"Their reaction was what you would expect; horror, shock, outrage and then tremendous grief," Valle said. "They just finished burying their mother and didn't expect [to see her brain]."

The family was given a bag of personal effects of the woman after her funeral last year, Valle said, and one of the relatives had left it in his truck. When the family began noticing a smell coming from the bag, they opened it and found the brain.

"They initially thought that when she died, she maybe soiled herself and they needed to wash or discard the clothes," Valle said. "But, then, they saw the clear plastic bag labeled with their [relative's name] and with the word 'brain' on it.

"They knew what they had," he added.

The family has since buried the brain with the body.

The DeVargas Funeral Home and Crematory of the Espanola Valley in New Mexico, as well as the Serenicare Funeral Home in Draper, Utah, is named in the suit, which was filed Jan. 4 in state District Court in Albuquerque.