Family Discovers Man Is Missing Organs After Dying In Police Custody

Delaware – Everette Palmer Jr. died last year while he was in police custody. He was getting ready to travel to New York to visit his brother and his mother (who was sick at the time), but he told his brother had an outstanding warrant for driving under the influence (DUI) he wanted to take care of first.

That was the last conversation any of his family members ever had with him. On April 9, 2018, two days later, the family was told that Palmer had died in police custody at the York County Prison. The cause of death was “undetermined” but the family hired a private civil rights attorney (Lee Merritt) because they kept getting the runaround about what really happened. When Everette Palmer Jr.’s body was returned to the family, he was missing his throat, heart and brain!

“This entire case smacks of a cover-up,” civil rights attorney Lee Merritt told CNN by phone.

The York County coroner (Pam Gay) said the organs were “retained” during the forensic autopsy. Gay says the organs were never “MISSING” … they have an outside lab who does all their autopsies and they are the ones who keeps all the “specimens.” She also said the family was made aware of that from the very beginning. She noted that removing the throat is typical in this kind of investigation because they have to make sure there weren’t any kind of components that caused asphyxia.”

The initial autopsy by the York County Coroner’s Office stated Palmer died after an incident “following an excited state” during which he “began hitting his head against the inside of his cell door” and was restrained. The report says Palmer became agitated as a result of “methamphetamine toxicity.” A probable “sickling red cell disorder” as listed as a contributing factor.

According to his family, Palmer never had any health problems leading up to his death. They also say the autopsy report of him hitting himself is completely out of his character.

Gay said investigations into possible drug-related deaths can take one to three years, but she did rule out one cause of death, saying it wasn’t suicide. The family says Palmer did have “some history of drug use,” but never meth. The reports from the prison while he was getting processed were made available to the family provided no indication that Palmer was under the influence or had any drug paraphernalia listed in his items when he arrived & please… let us not forget he turned himself in! Why would he turn himself in while he was under the influence??

The family says they were later told by the coroner that the body parts were at an independent lab, but they still have never received them. However, the lab, Merritt says, has refused to hand over the parts, citing an ongoing investigation.

The family just wants answers!!! His brother Dwayne said “We don’t believe anything (officials) are telling us at this point,” he said. “It’s a tremendous loss for our family. We are devastated.”

“It’s been over a year and we want some answers. He was delivered back to us without organs. We want closure,” Palmer said. “If something criminal happened, and I believe something criminal did happen, we want the people that was involved in that to be held accountable.”