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UnevenEdge

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Posted

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/24/california-man-buries-son-wrong-man-homelessness

 

A southern California man who thought he had buried his son found out 11 days later that the son was still alive, after local coroners misidentified a body.

 

On 6 May, a man was found dead behind a Verizon store in Fountain Valley. Frank J Kerrigan, 82, of Wildomar, said he called the coroner’s office and was told the body was that of his son, Frank M Kerrigan, 57, who suffers from mental illness and had been living on the street.

 

When Kerrigan asked whether he should identify the body, a woman said – apparently incorrectly – that identification had been made through fingerprints.

 

“When somebody tells me my son is dead, when they have fingerprints, I believe them,” Kerrigan said. “If he wasn’t identified by fingerprints I would been there in heartbeat.”

 

Kerrigan’s daughter, 56-year-old Carole Meikle of Silverado, went to the spot where the body was found to leave a photo of her brother, a candle, flowers and rosary beads.

 

“It was a very difficult situation for me to stand at a pretty disturbing scene,” she said. “There was blood and dirty blankets.

 

On 12 May, the family held a $20,000 funeral that drew about 50 people from as far away as Las Vegas and Washington state.

 

"We thought we were burying our brother. Someone else had a beautiful sendoff. It’s horrific."

Posted

But, seriously, that's a sad story.  Fountain Valley is one of those barren, northern OC places that's stuck between older touristy places like Anaheim and the beach towns.  Just endless suburbia and strip malls.

Posted

How come your kids obituary never showed up?

 

It was at the bottom of the Auto Trader ad for his car.  Luckily Nabs is worth more glued to the top of his car than he was in life.

Posted

It was at the bottom of the Auto Trader ad for his car.  Luckily Nabs is worth more glued to the top of his car than he was in life.

I thought it was because they never found his body at the scene of the crash?  ::spin::

Posted

But, seriously, that's a sad story.  Fountain Valley is one of those barren, northern OC places that's stuck between older touristy places like Anaheim and the beach towns.  Just endless suburbia and strip malls.

 

This is one of those situations where compensation for 'pain and suffering' is warranted. The stress of finding out that a loved one is dead can actually kill you, and then it's more stress when it turns out to be a mistake.

Posted

seems weird to me

 

I mean you'd think you'd double check just to be sure or something before spending 20 grand on a funeral

 

Too much trust in authority and thinking that they don't make mistakes. I would have been suspicious from the get-go because the supposed dead family member is homeless, and a lot of folks in society don't give a damn about them enough just to make sure the right body is identified.

Posted

It'd make sense if this was in the east, near the Maryland-Virginia-West Virginia metropolitan area.

 

But Jesus Christ, that's a terrible story.

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