Hidden in a Heart, A Discovery ‘Beyond Belief’

Linda Carswell’s decade-long quest to recover her husband’s heart has taken a macabre twist. After almost a decade, she thought she would be able to bury it with his other remains, but the saga has taken an unexpected turn. The heart, which was removed and retained by a Texas hospital without her consent during an autopsy, contains no human DNA. This has left Carswell dismayed and unsure of what to do next. 

The lack of DNA could be due to the way it was preserved, or the “real possibility that the heart submitted was not human,” according to the forensic biologist who did the analysis. Carswell is now unable to bury the tissue, as she fears it could desecrate the grave, and cannot be sure what it is. 

The mystery of Jerry Carswell’s death has been unresolved since he died shortly after receiving a dose of narcotics on the day he was supposed to be discharged from Christus St. Catherine Hospital in Katy, Texas. His family pushed for an autopsy, which proved inconclusive, and it wasn’t until two years after his death that Carswell even realized he had been buried without his heart. 

Carswell sued and won a $2 million jury verdict for fraud, which was upheld on appeal, but Christus is asking the court to rehear the case. Last August, the appeals court determined the heart should be returned to the widow, and it was sent to a forensic laboratory in Pennsylvania. The lab report said the samples produced no DNA profile and that no conclusions could be drawn about the material. 

Carswell’s attorney has now filed a petition in Harris County District Court that could allow her to question hospital officials to find out why the tissue sample contains no DNA. The heart remains at the laboratory for now, leaving Carswell with an unsettling lack of resolution to the mystery of her husband’s death.

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