After stillbirth, Cox tells couple their baby's remains are lost

On a brutal day in early November, Brianna Dudley gave birth to a stillborn son.

She and her husband, Kyle Dudley, had known for weeks things were bleak. That didn’t make it any easier when they induced labor in a last-ditch effort to save baby Lucas.

His heart was not beating when he arrived.

“Our families were with us and they were really heartbroken, too, because we were really hoping that he was going to survive,” Brianna Dudley said.

Then things really went haywire, the Dudleys said in an interview Tuesday alongside a local attorney.

After the stillbirth, the Dudleys agreed to have an autopsy and genetic analysis performed to learn as much as possible about what went wrong and why.

A week later, they went to Cox South expecting those results. But when they got there, they didn’t meet with any pathologists. Instead, Cox representatives told them their baby was gone.

'Why would someone do that?'

“We were told that the day that Lucas was scheduled for an autopsy, pathology went down there and they saw that Lucas's body wasn't there,” Brianna Dudley said. “And we didn't understand what they were talking about.”

Cox representatives went on, the Dudleys said, to show them video footage of a man in a hoodie taking what Cox believed to be their son’s remains out of the hospital’s morgue.

Brianna Dudley said that after the man exited the morgue, she could clearly see a bulge in his hoodie “wrapped in white” that Cox representatives believed was their son.

Kyle Dudley said he and his wife were “completely shocked.”

Brianna Dudley couldn’t fathom a motive for such an act.

“Why would someone do that? What purpose do you have of doing that?” she asked. “That’s our child, nobody has the right to do that.”

They also had questions about how someone got into a secure area.

Cox representatives said the man was "someone contracted through the hospital to transfer body parts to different areas, different counties," Brianna Dudley said.

The Cox representatives weren’t offering any other answers, though, the Dudleys said. They said they knew the man’s name but wouldn’t repeat it, told the Dudleys the matter had been referred to law enforcement and recommended they keep in touch with Springfield police.

The Dudleys said Tuesday they haven’t heard from Cox or the police since.

Cox spokeswoman Kaitlyn McConnell declined to say much more when the News-Leader detailed the allegations in a request for comment this week.

In a statement, she confirmed that the remains of a stillborn infant were unaccounted for and that staff began an internal investigation that included reviewing video and other information and that “suspicious activity was identified that caused us to notify law enforcement for investigation.”

McConnell added, “As soon as law enforcement’s investigation permitted, CoxHealth’s leadership team met with the family to share information related to this incident. Because this is an ongoing investigation and a law enforcement matter, we are unable to provide additional information at this point.”

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A Springfield police spokeswoman said she couldn’t comment on the status of an active investigation.

Grant Rahmeyer, an attorney with Strong-Garner-Bauer, said he got more information in private conversations with Cox and the police, though, clouding the matter further.

The police, Rahmeyer said, told him that they had followed up on Cox’s tip and hadn’t gotten very far. The man in question denied the accusations and cooperated with their investigation, and no remains had been found.

“They’re kind of stuck,” Rahmeyer said.

'We have no closure'

On the other hand, Rahmeyer added, Cox’s risk manager offered him an alternative theory for the loss of the remains, suggesting it may have been caused by a “processing issue."

Rahmeyer said the risk manager did not elaborate on what that “processing issue” entailed when he asked.

The confidential asides have been little comfort to the Dudleys.

Brianna Dudley said the alternative theory presented by the Cox risk manager seemed like “backpedaling.”

“I just don't understand why they would tell us this horrible thing and show us video footage and then say to our attorney something completely different that they never brought up to us,” she said. “It just seems negligent.”

The News-Leader included that detail in its request for comment seeking explanation of the matter, but McConnell, the Cox spokeswoman, didn’t comment on the discrepancy in her statement.

Rahmeyer said he and his clients are still holding out hope for answers at this point, but emphasized that they wouldn’t wait forever.

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“(The Dudleys) are told that maybe some sicko stole their child and now they’re being stonewalled,” he said. “If that’s going to be the case, the only remedy is a lawsuit where they’re legally bound to answer my questions.”

Meanwhile, Brianna Dudley still can’t go into the room she and her husband had prepared for their son. Kyle Dudley described dealing with a "nightmare over and over again."

“We were planning on having a cremation for him and a way to honor his life because he was very loved and important to us,” Brianna Dudley said. “And we can’t do that now.”

"We have no closure," Kyle Dudley said.