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California Father Buries Wrong Man After Coroner’s Mistake
Associated Press via NBC News ^ | June 24, 2017

Posted on 06/25/2017 9:11:44 AM PDT by Kaslin

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Eleven days after laying his son to rest, Frank J. Kerrigan got a call from a friend.

"Your son is alive," he said.

"Bill (Shinker) put my son on the phone," Kerrigan said. "He said 'Hi Dad.' "

Orange County coroner's officials had misidentified the body, the Orange County Register reported Friday.

The mix-up began on May 6 when a man was found dead behind a Verizon store in Fountain Valley.

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 is mentally ill and had been living on the street.

When he 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."

Frank's sister, 56-year-old Carole Meikle of Silverado, went to the spot where he died to leave a photo of him, a candle, flowers and rosary beads.

(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...


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1 posted on 06/25/2017 9:11:44 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

More fun from the Smart People State.


2 posted on 06/25/2017 9:12:27 AM PDT by Steely Tom (Liberals think in propaganda)
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To: Kaslin

I understand the incompetence of the gubmint bureaucrats, but is the family blind or something? Or they didn’t care, but want to cash it in with lawsuits.


3 posted on 06/25/2017 9:25:58 AM PDT by sagar
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To: sagar

Funerals aren’t cheap. I’d favor some reimbursement.


4 posted on 06/25/2017 9:38:15 AM PDT by OrangeHoof (Get used to it - President Donald J. Trump)
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To: Steely Tom

and the Crumbling Spillway State


5 posted on 06/25/2017 9:39:23 AM PDT by C210N
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To: C210N

Jeez l can not imagine what this felt like start to finish and yes financial compensation is appropriate at the very least.


6 posted on 06/25/2017 9:44:10 AM PDT by gibsonguy
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To: Kaslin

Very sad, messed up situation.
The shock of saying ‘Your dead son, is not dead’, is by itself enough to give many elderly parents a heart attack.
It’s possible that the mistaken corpse looked very similar to the man in question.
Perhaps this act of ‘professional presumption’ is more common than most of the general public would like to think, especially when dealing with homeless people, or barely indentified, unclaimed cadavers.

The tragedy is compounded, because although the man’s father grieved his son, whom he considered ‘dead’, the parent was able to think ‘Finally, I can know with certainty that my son is at peace, and not suffering alone in some dark corner.”
Now the wondering and the worrying starts anew.


7 posted on 06/25/2017 9:44:55 AM PDT by lee martell
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To: sagar

Apparently the son lived on the streets for decades....


8 posted on 06/25/2017 9:46:58 AM PDT by Bigtigermike (D)
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To: Bigtigermike

“Apparently the son lived on the streets for decades....”

That clears up a lot of questions I had.


9 posted on 06/25/2017 9:54:51 AM PDT by Parley Baer
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To: Bigtigermike

“Apparently the son lived on the streets for decades....”

I am having trouble understanding why the grieving family didn’t even look at their loved son one last time. Just one peek by ANYONE would have cleared up this mess.


10 posted on 06/25/2017 9:56:29 AM PDT by sagar
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To: sagar

Pics are electronic these days.


11 posted on 06/25/2017 10:12:25 AM PDT by Paladin2 (No spelchk nor wrong word auto substition on mobile dev. Please be intelligent and deal with it....)
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To: sagar
I am having trouble understanding why the grieving family didn’t even look at their loved son one last time. Just one peek by ANYONE would have cleared up this mess.

He did. But having not seen his son in decades, he thought he was looking at the body of his dead son...

Earlier, in the funeral home, the grieving Kerrigan had looked at the man in the casket and touched his hair, convinced he was looking at his son for the last time.

"I didn't know what my dead son was going to look like," he said.

“We lived through our worst fear.” Then came the May 23 phone call from Shinker. Kerrigan's son was standing on the patio.

It was unclear how coroner's officials misidentified the body.
<

12 posted on 06/25/2017 10:14:29 AM PDT by Flick Lives
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To: sagar

The father did looked at his son but he’s in his eighties and he hasn’t seen his son in perhaps decades and were told the fingerprint matched that of his son. He probably convinced himself that was his son. Strangest circumstances though


13 posted on 06/25/2017 10:18:28 AM PDT by Bigtigermike (D)
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To: OrangeHoof

The family spend at least $20K on either a funeral or a memorial service. The (now homeless again by choice) son looks just like his father.


14 posted on 06/25/2017 10:19:30 AM PDT by lee martell
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To: Kaslin
Hopefully someone at the county has reached out to the family to pay for the funeral, burial and any other expenses the family put out due to this mix-up and already contacted the cemetery to exhume the unidentified remains.

Because otherwise, I'd imagine there's going to be a line from the father's door around the block of lawyers looking for a very easy payday.

15 posted on 06/25/2017 10:20:31 AM PDT by kingu (Everything starts with slashing the size and scope of the federal government.)
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To: sagar
"I am having trouble understanding why the grieving family didn’t even look at their loved son one last time."

Actually LOOK at the guys with the cardboard sign, next time. A two foot white beard, white hair down to the middle of the back, ragged tee shirt, baggy, filthy jeans, run over sneakers, toothless, wrinkled, scrawny, burned to the color of an old saddle... Add to that, how many days the body was behind the store, in the Kali sun. Did the Undertaker clean the body? When was the last time they even saw him, after a bath?

Kali bums tend to adopt a "look". After a couple years, you couldn't pick your twin brother out.

It's not the years, it's the milage.

16 posted on 06/25/2017 10:36:28 AM PDT by jonascord (First rule of the Dunning-Kruger Club is that you do not know you are in the Dunning-Kruger club.)
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To: OrangeHoof

I wounder how much they paid for the casket? They could have ordered a nice one from Amazon under $1000 or less


17 posted on 06/25/2017 10:39:30 AM PDT by Kaslin (The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triump. Thomas Paine)
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To: gibsonguy

Yes it is.


18 posted on 06/25/2017 10:40:11 AM PDT by Kaslin (The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triump. Thomas Paine)
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To: gibsonguy

If the state gave Michael Brown’s family $1.5 MILLION because their “gentle giant” was trying to kill a cop with his own gun, I’d think the coroner should cough up $20k to cover funeral expenses at the least. Pain and suffering will be a minimum of $100k


19 posted on 06/25/2017 10:52:51 AM PDT by Blue Highway (Q)
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To: lee martell

How do we know what the son looks like? The article did not show him except for his 80 year old father holding a picture of his son when he was in his 20s or 30s.


20 posted on 06/25/2017 10:56:31 AM PDT by Blue Highway (Q)
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