Mitrice Richardson's Mother Files Second Lawsuit Against LA County
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The mother of Mitrice Richardson, whose body was found nearly a year after being released from custody, has filed a second lawsuit against Los Angeles County alleging deputies improperly removed her daughter's remains from the discovery site.
Latice Sutton is asking for unspecified damages, alleging negligence and both intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
The 24-year-old Cal State Fullerton student's skeletal remains were found Aug. 9, 2010 after she went missing in September of 2009. Richardson was found during a search for illegal marijuana farms.
The complaint claims coroner's staffers told deputies not to disturb the remains after Richardson's body was found.
"Despite these orders, the sheriff's deputies improperly removed the remains of Ms. Richardson from the discovery site," the suit alleges.
Three months later, Sheriff Lee Baca and a team of deputies led Sutton and some of her family to the site where they said Richardson's body was found. A member of Sutton's family found a small human bone left on the ground by either the sheriff's deputies who discovered the remains or the coroner.
Sutton claims that, based on her communications with the coroner's office, she later realized that the site Baca and his deputies took her to was not the same one from where her daughter's remains were actually excavated.
Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore declined to comment on the lawsuit.
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