Ryan Lim’s family posted missing person posters around San Diego in a desperate search for their son. His mother later learned that as they searched, Ryan’s unidentified body was at the county Medical Examiner’s Office.San Diego County has agreed to pay $700,000 to settle a legal claim brought by a family who spent five months searching for their missing 19-year-old son before learning that his body had been at the county Medical Examiner’s Office the entire time.
A spokesperson for the Medical Examiner’s Office declined to comment on the settlement. An attorney for the family did not respond to a request for comment. The claim alleges that his family last heard from him the morning of Nov. 7, when he texted his mother. An investigative report from the Medical Examiner’s Office indicates he was found dead that evening on the sidewalk along 10th Avenue near Broadway in downtown San Diego. He did not have identification on him.
For months, Renee Lim did not know her son’s fate. The claim alleged that after weeks of trying to track him down from Northern California, she filed a missing persons report with San Diego police on Nov. 23. A few weeks later she called the Medical Examiner’s Office.