A city office built to safeguard the dead only works if its own leaders treat a human skull as evidence, not trash.
Story Snapshot
- A San Francisco death investigator alleges the head of the medical examiner’s office tossed out a human skull while cleaning up for an inspection.
- The same lawsuit claims the investigator later lost her job in retaliation after the skull issue surfaced.
- The allegations spotlight how quickly chain-of-custody can collapse when internal accountability fails.
- The official’s dual role in city government and a California stem cell agency committee raises uncomfortable oversight questions.
A SkulI, an Inspection, and an Allegation That Doesn’t Stay “Internal”
The lawsuit centers on a blunt claim: David Serrano Sewell, the head of San Francisco’s medical examiner office, likely disposed of a human skull while rushing to tidy the workplace ahead of an inspection. Sonia Kominek-Adachi, a death investigator, says her employment ended after her involvement in discovering or reporting what happened. Courts will decide what’s true, but the scenario matters because mishandling remains isn’t a paperwork error; it’s the centerline of public trust.
Medical examiner offices live and die by small routines: labeled containers, controlled access, logged transfers, and supervisors who follow the same rules they enforce. A skull is not a prop from a crime show; it can be an identifier, a timeline marker, or the key to confirming a death investigation’s basics. The allegation lands like a siren because “cleanup before inspection” is exactly when bad systems try to look orderly without actually being disciplined.
Chain-of-Custody: The Unsexy Rule That Keeps Justice from Guessing
Chain-of-custody sounds bureaucratic until it breaks. When evidence goes missing, families lose answers, prosecutors lose cases, defense attorneys gain leverage, and the public learns the wrong lesson: that government can’t manage fundamentals. If a skull was discarded, the damage would not be limited to one item. It would invite questions about what else was handled casually, what documentation was backfilled, and whether staff felt pressure to treat evidence like clutter.
The retaliation claim adds gasoline. Whistleblower protections exist because organizations naturally prefer quiet fixes over public scrutiny. A conservative, common-sense view is simple: workers should not have to choose between integrity and a paycheck, especially in roles dealing with the dead and with criminal investigations. If leaders punish employees for raising alarms, they don’t just risk a lawsuit; they teach everyone else to stay silent next time.
Why Dual Roles Matter: Oversight Should Not Be a Part-Time Hobby
The lawsuit also points to a broader accountability problem: the official implicated in the allegations reportedly holds a position on a committee within California’s stem cell agency, described as a major, multibillion-dollar scientific institution. That doesn’t prove wrongdoing, but it does raise a governance question adults understand instinctively. When a public official wears multiple prestigious hats, the temptation grows to treat criticism as a threat to status rather than as information to be tested.
Oversight failures rarely announce themselves with a single dramatic act; they stack up as exceptions, shortcuts, and “just this once” decisions. The inspection context matters here. Inspections exist because humans cut corners when no one checks. If the office’s response to an inspection was frantic cleanup rather than calm compliance, that signals a cultural issue: a preference for appearances over process. Courts may confirm or reject the particulars, but the management lesson is already plain.
Retaliation Claims: The Fastest Way to Turn One Incident into a System Crisis
A mishandled-remains allegation is serious; a retaliation allegation can be existential. It suggests leadership didn’t simply make a questionable decision but then allegedly tried to control the narrative by controlling the employee. That pattern, when it exists, shows up across government: inconvenient facts get relabeled as “attitude problems,” and discipline gets reframed as “performance.” Common sense says any termination tied to reporting evidence mishandling deserves a hard, independent look.
Limited public detail exists beyond the lawsuit reporting summarized in the available research, so readers should resist rushing to final judgment. Still, the safest principle for institutions is not “trust the boss” or “trust the accuser.” It’s: preserve evidence, document everything, separate investigators from subjects, and make retaliation impossible by design. When agencies follow those steps, truth tends to surface without requiring heroics from individual employees.
What This Case Signals About Public Trust, Even Before a Verdict
The most durable damage in scandals like this comes from the pause people feel before they trust official explanations. Families who rely on medical examiner work want competence and respect, not drama. Taxpayers want systems that function even when personalities clash. If the allegations prove false, transparent procedures will clear names faster. If they prove true, reforms must go beyond one individual and address training, audits, evidence storage, and clear reporting channels.
San Fran medical examiner trashes human skull, then fires worker who caught him, lawsuit claims https://t.co/DvKBTOqBxM pic.twitter.com/ae3rHkMa53
— New York Post (@nypost) February 11, 2026
San Francisco’s case also offers a final, practical warning: inspections shouldn’t trigger panic. Competent agencies treat inspections like routine tune-ups, not emergency makeovers. When a workplace scrambles, something is already broken—culture, staffing, leadership, or all three. The lawsuit’s allegations may take time to resolve, but the public doesn’t need to wait for a verdict to demand the basics: documented custody of remains, accountable supervisors, and real protection for employees who report problems.
