Penn settles a lawsuit over its handling of the remains of a MOVE bombing victim

Aubrey Whelan, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Apr 25, 2025

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PHILADELPHIA — The University of Pennsylvania has settled a lawsuit over the handling of the remains of a MOVE bombing victim that were kept at the Penn Museum for decades, according to court filings.

Lionell Dotson had contended that the university kept the remains of his sister Katricia after she was killed in the May 13, 1985, bombing of the radical, Black-led, back-to-nature group’s West Philadelphia headquarters. Katricia, 14, died in the ensuing fire with her sister Zanetta, three other children, and six adults.

Pathologists contracted by the MOVE Commission, which conducted the independent investigation into the bombing, identified a set of remains pulled from the destroyed MOVE house as those of Katricia Dotson.

But the city medical examiner and two Penn anthropologists he consulted for help identifying the bodies disagreed, saying the remains belonged to an 18- to 20-year-old woman.

Details of the settlement in the suit, filed in Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court, were not available.

After the MOVE Commission concluded its investigation, the medical examiner gave the bones to the anthropologists, Alan Mann and Janet Monge.

The remains stayed at the Penn Museum for decades — even as family members believed they had buried all of the remains of the youngest victims.

In 2019, Monge displayed them in an online anthropology course viewed by thousands. In 2021, The Inquirer reported that Penn had kept remains of at least one MOVE victim, sparking widespread outrage.

While Penn maintained in court filings that the remains were unidentifiable, the university returned them to MOVE members in 2021.

Dotson, who lives in Fayetteville, N.C., countered that the remains are his sister’s, and that they should have been transferred to him as her next of kin. His mother, Consuewella, had died of complications from COVID-19 shortly before the remains were given to MOVE members.

A Penn spokesperson declined comment. Daniel Hartstein, a lawyer for Dotson, said only that the parties forged an “amicable resolution” to the case. A lawyer for Monge would not comment because she is suing Penn for defamation.

Earlier this year, Dotson settled another lawsuit against the city, whose medical examiner’s office had also kept remains from the MOVE bombing, including some belonging to his sisters. Those remains were returned to him in 2022.

A third lawsuit, against the funeral home Penn contacted to handle the remains kept at the museum, is ongoing.

In November, Penn announced that museum had found the bones of another MOVE child, 12-year-old Delisha Africa. The university had long denied that it had also kept her remains.

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