(NewsNation) — The bodies of two men who died while incarcerated in Alabama’s prison system were reportedly returned to their families missing their hearts and other organs, a federal lawsuit alleges.

Forensic analyst Joseph Scott Morgan was shocked to learn about the “grave robbery” allegations.

“When someone dies in custody, that body must be examined,” Morgan said Friday on “Banfield.” “That’s an in-custody death. The state is responsible for their mortal remains.”

The family of Brandon Clay Dotson, who died in a state prison in November, filed a federal lawsuit last month against the Alabama Department of Corrections and others saying his body was decomposing and his heart was missing when his remains were returned to his family.

In a court filing in the case last week, the daughter of Charles Edward Singleton, another deceased inmate, said her father’s body was missing all of his internal organs when it was returned in 2021.

“The fact that … in both cases there was significant decomposition is quite shocking,” Morgan added.

The Associated Press sent an email seeking comment late Wednesday afternoon to the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Dotson, 43, was found dead Nov. 16 at Ventress Correctional Facility. His family, suspecting foul play was involved in his death, hired a pathologist to do a second autopsy and discovered his heart was missing, according to the lawsuit. His family filed a lawsuit seeking to find out why his heart was removed and to have it returned to them.

“Defendants’ outrageous and inexcusable mishandling of the deceased’s body amounts to a reprehensible violation of human dignity and common decency,” the lawsuit states, adding that “their appalling misconduct is nothing short of grave robbery and mutilation.”

Dotson’s family, while seeking information about what happened to his heart, discovered that other families had similar experiences, Lauren Faraino, an attorney representing Dotson’s family, told the Associated Press.

The situation involving Singleton’s body is mentioned in court documents filed by Dotson’s family last week. In the documents, the inmate’s daughter Charlene Drake writes that a funeral home told her that her father’s body was brought to it “with no internal organs” after his death while incarcerated in 2021.

She wrote that the funeral director told her that “normally the organs are in a bag placed back in the body after an autopsy, but Charles had been brought to the funeral home with no internal organs.” The court filing was first reported by WBMA.

A federal judge held a hearing in the Dotson case last week. Al.com reported that the hearing provided no answers to the location of the heart.

The lawsuit filed by Dotson’s family contended the heart might have been retained during a state autopsy with intent to give it to the medical school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham for research purposes.

Attorneys for the university said that was “bald speculation” and wrote in a court filing the university did not perform the autopsy and never received any of Dotson’s organs.