Corpsman's heartless corpse

The Marine stationed in Athens suffered a bad breakup, got really drunk at an embassy party in Athens and killed himself. But that's not the heart of the story.

His body is sent for an autopsy in Athens to determine the cause of death. His body is sent back to his hometown in Pennsylvania for his parents to realize that his heart was missing! Today, two years later, a court in Philadelphia ruled that the parents can sue the US government, but not the Greek officials of the autopsy, or the Athens hospital where the body was examined.

The dispute involves the August 2012 suicide of Marine Sgt. Brian LaLoup, who shot himself after a party at the U.S. embassy in Athens, where he was stationed. His heart went missing after an autopsy at an Athens hospital. His parents learned that from U.S. military officials only after his funeral - and they still don't know where it is.

The parents also hope to learn more about their son's death. They believe their son told a colleague that he was suicidal over a breakup that night, but he was nonetheless allowed to keep drinking and gain access to a weapons closet.

U.S. military officials discovered the heart was missing when they performed a second autopsy on Aug. 22, after the body arrived in Dover, Del. The family learned that on Sept. 17, two weeks after the funeral.

A Greek embassy spokesman in Washington, D.C., has said the hospital kept the heart for toxicology tests, but he declined to say what happened to it later. The LaLoups have not ruled out filing suit in Greece against other defendants.