Jessica Mejia was killed one night as she rode in the back of a car driven by her boyfriend. After police arrived at the scene of the accident, the 20-year-old Mejia was stripped naked by police and photos were taken of her body.
The family filed suit against the police department, hoping to restore the reputation of their late daughter. The Chicago Tribune was given access to the photos by the attorney for the family.
According to the Tribune, the officers removed Mejia’s body from the vehicle after the crash, stripped her clothes from her body and took pictures.
Mejia’s mother told the Tribune:
[People] think my daughter died from having sex, not from somebody being drunk and killing her. Because they took these photos, by the time everybody else got to the scene, all the ambulances and everybody else, she was partially naked because they made her naked… So the rumors, and the allegations … they made it believable.”
The Sheriff’s department has claimed that the photos were medically necessary.
The attorney for the family said to the Tribune:
This was a young lady that just died and was treated with less dignity than a deer carcass you find on the side of the road.
