County offers $50,000 to settle case of missing body organs

By Joe Schoenmann

Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012 | 5:15 p.m.

The case of the missing viscera may cost Clark County $50,000, or more, depending on the decision of a London family whose dead relative was returned from Las Vegas without his internal organs.

Clark County commissioners approved a settlement offer of $50,000 to the family of Richard Boorman, who died in 2005. Though no one knows what happened to the man’s internal organs after an autopsy was performed on him, the county says he was delivered intact to a local funeral home.

Previous reports say a Clark County autopsy found Boorman, a 29-year-old aluminum trader from London, and a former amateur boxer, died from acute cocaine and alcohol intoxication. After a local mortuary embalmed the body, it was shipped to London. Standard procedure in England is to do another autopsy of a British citizen who has died abroad.

That couldn’t be done, however, because Boorman’s body was returned without a heart, brain, liver, kidneys and lungs. Six family members and Boorman’s “personal representative” filed seven claims, including fraud, conspiracy and negligence resulting in emotional distress. Each claim could potentially cost the county $50,000, or $350,000 total.

While county attorneys assured commissioners they could prove the county is not liable, they offered the settlement to avoid potential court costs and the possibility of losing if the matter went to trial.