SEATTLE -- More grieving families stepped forward on Friday with accusations that the King County Medical Examiner's Office sold brains for profit without getting consent.

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Video: More Families Step Forward With Accusations

Thursday night, KIRO Team 7 Investigators first exposed how King County shipped about 180 brains to a private research facility out of state.

In return, it got more than $1 million.

Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne has discovered information about missing consent forms and at least one brain that should never have been harvested.

For privacy reasons, we'll call this case 98-1218. That's the label King County slapped on the file of a dead man before removing his brain and sending it to an East Coast research lab called the Stanley Institute.

The legal next of kin told KIRO Team 7 Investigators the family never knew. Nobody ever asked to take the brain.

Between 1995 and 2004, the King County Medical Examiner was a brain broker. When a dead client with a history of mental illness arrived at the morgue, a pathologist often mailed the brains to Stanley Medical Research in Bethesda, Md.

In return, the private research lab sent the county money -- lots more than the cost of processing the tissue, $1.49 million in all. That's $8,300 per brain.

One of the specimens belonged to Peter Bryan.

MORE ON THIS STORY Text Of Agreement Between Stanley Institute, King County M. E. [pdf file] Money Paid To King County M.E.'s Office By Stanley Institute E-mail From County Official Regarding Legality Of Agreement State Law Regarding Consent E-mail link to King County Health Director Alonzo Plough, who oversees M.E.'s Office (and KIRO Team 7 Investigators)

"I didn't know anything about money exchanged," said his mother, Barbara.

"I don't want money exchanged for a body part. Most people wouldn't," she said.

Barbara is just one next-of-kin who feels misled by King County's brain tissue program. Bill Lynn is another. His son Gary died after spending years in an out of mental institutions.

Lynn: "That's what they told me: It'd help them do research to find out about schizophrenia and so forth, because he suffered from it."
Halsne: "But that's a good thing."
Lynn: "Well, yeah, but nobody said anything about dollar one. No one."

In fact, King County is going to have a hard time proving they received legal consent from next of kin. They used phone calls and rarely, if ever, got written consent forms signed.

Virginia Hendricks, whose son Jim's brain was harvested by King County, says "I'm sure I never signed anything, unless it was disguised as something else."

An e-mail we obtained under the Open Records Act indicates King County also had record keeping problems.

In November of 2004, a worker at Stanley Research wrote "I have been reviewing our brain files and find that I am missing some of the consent forms."

Case No. 98-1218 is the most interesting.

We tracked the case to next of kin in Florida. The family says its Jewish traditions would never allow removal of a brain. It never gave consent of any kind.

Stanley received the brain via King County anyway, according to county records and the family. The family recently retained an attorney.

Organ donation Ethics expert Dr. Elliot Stern says King County's lapses could be devastating.

"People who might otherwise tomorrow be donating organs or tissues may not because they're concerned where they are going and wx money is changing hands," Dr. Stern said.

King County keeps putting off an on-camera interview with me. However, on the phone, a Health Department spokesperson says the county has called that family in Florida with its apologies. Medical Examiners can't find proof they ever made a phone call asking for that brain.