Lawsuit: County Used Son's Remains to Train Dogs

A western New York family is suing an upstate county after the coroner there took a piece of their son's body for use in a dog-training exercise. Thirty-two-year-old Roger Dunn died last spring in an auto wreck in Cambria. After the crash, Niagara County Coroner Russell Jackman gave some tissue from the crash scene to a volunteer fire chief, who was training a dog to sniff out human remains.

Both men later resigned and pleaded guilty to misdemeanors over their conduct. They also apologized. The Buffalo News reports that Dunn's parents, Danny and Anita, filed a lawsuit this week against the county, the former coroner, the ex-chief, and the Cambria Volunteer Fire Company. County officials who investigated the mishandling of the remains had called it a well-intentioned mistake. (More remains stories.)