SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - In a just-filed legal claim, a grieving mother alleges the San Diego County Medical Examiner's failed to identify her son for 5 months, leaving loved ones to believe he was missing all that time.
November 2022.
19-year-old Ryan Lim, who had arrived in San Diego months prior to attend a recovery program for a fentanyl addiction, stopped returning the calls of his mother Renee, who lives in the Bay Area.
“It wasn't like him not to connect,” said Renee.
Alarmed, she filed a missing persons report, eventually coming down to San Diego, to lead an agonizing search for her son.
“The anxiety, the worry, and the hoping he was out there. It’s hard to find words to describe,” said Renee.
A month after Ryan went missing, Renee says she contacted the Medical Examiner's Office and described her son's 4 distinctive tattoos. She says an administrator told her there was no one matching her son’s description.
Five months after Ryan went missing, Renee says images of her son's tattoos were uploaded to a missing person database by the M.E.’s Office. Finally, she would learn his fate. Ryan had been discovered on a street in the East Village after a fentanyl overdose.
His body had deteriorated to the point, she was not able to see her son's face.
“It just really broke my heart that I couldn't even see my son one last time,” said Renee.
That heartbreak is part of a legal claim filed by Ryan's family, alleging the M.E.’s Office didn't do enough to identify her son's body.
“The pain of not knowing, as a parent, is unimaginable,” said Renee.
Her lawyers call it a shocking level of incompetence.
“They did nothing. They could of run fingerprints against the DMV, they could have put it in the NAM website … like they did 5 months later,” said attorney Marc Greenberg.
Renee hopes her claim, seeking $5 million in damages—a precursor to a lawsuit—will inspire change.
“My son deserve to be treated better … If you don't bring attention, nothing will change,” said Renee.
In a statement, a county spokesperson says they haven't yet received the claim, while pointing out in the recent fiscal year, 83% of John and Jane Doe decedents have been identified within 72 hours.
