A Staten Island jury has awarded $1 million to a family that sued New York City after learning that their dead son's brain was on display at the city morgue.

Relatives of 17-year-old Jesse Jerome Shipley say they learned through a macabre coincidence in 2005 that the medical examiner's
office had kept his brain and other organ parts for testing.

Classmates of the victim's sister went on a field trip to the Richmond County Mortuary. They saw a specimen jar containing a brain labeled with Jesse's name.

The next day, the classmates told Jesse's 14-year-old sister. She was a passenger in the car crash that had claimed his life two months earlier.

The family said it had to conduct a second burial.

City lawyer Sheila Rossi expressed sympathy for the family's "tragic loss."