[gatagato]

CHEHALIS, Washington – The family of Jerry Moon wants to know how the wrong body ended up in his casket at his Washington state funeral.

Family members were horrified Monday when they looked in the casket and saw the body of another man, The Chronicle reported Tuesday. They have hired a lawyer and asked the state Department of Licensing to investigate.

Moon, a retired railroad conductor from Castle Rock, died Oct. 13 at Community Home, Health & Hospice in Longview at age 72.
Dahl McVicker Funeral Home, Kelso, picked up his body the same day. Brown Mortuary, Chehalis, transported the body from Kelso the next day. Everyone involved in handling the body says they followed procedures and can't explain the switch.

Moon's son, Brian Moon, of Chehalis, said he received a phone call from Ken Dahl, the president of Dahl McVicker Funeral Home. Dahl told Brian Moon he cremated his father.

"My dad feared cremation and didn't want any part of it," Moon said. "He spent a lot of time and money and he wanted to be buried next to his father and mother."

The family has the ashes and, if they are confirmed to be Jerry Moon's, they will be buried at Claquato Cemetery in Chehalis, where a graveside memorial was canceled after the mix-up.

Meanwhile, the man who had been scheduled to be cremated was dressed in Moon's clothes and placed in his casket for the funeral at Brown Mortuary Service, Moon said.

When the casket was opened, friends and family were shocked.

"That poor guy was dressed in my father's clothes in front of hundreds of people," Moon said.

The person in the casket was cremated and his family now has his ashes, Moon said.

Brown Mortuary was not responsible for the mistake, said manager Daniel LaPlaunt.

"We follow all state protocols for identification," LaPlaunt said. "We have to trust those people who we receive a body from."
_________________________________

Family opens casket, finds wrong dead man
The family of Jerry Moon, a man who was terrified of being cremated, had planned a final goodbye at his funeral Monday.

They opened the casket to see him one last time.

But what they found was the wrong dead man.

And Moon was cremated.

“This makes me feel like he was treated as a number, not a person,” daughter Cheryl Moon said.

The wrong man was wearing Jerry Moon's clothes, and a photo of Moon and his wife, Jan, was tucked under the pillow of the coffin.

Officials with Hospice Care in Longview tell KIRO 7 they believe the body mix-up happened after the funeral home took possession of Moon's body. KIRO 7 asked Brown Mortuary for an interview, but officials with their parent company in Houston, Service Corporation International, said they cannot comment on the issue.

SCI runs roughly 1,400 funeral homes and 400 cemeteries in the United States and Canada.

When Moon’s family opened the casket, the body had a plastic bag over his head. Brian Moon was sickened thinking the mortuary had left a bag on his father Jerry Moon's head -- but then his brother realized it wasn't even their father in the casket.

“I turned around and said to myself three times, ‘That’s not him, that’s not him, that’s not him,” Randy Moon told KIRO 7.

The family learned a 97-year-old man died in hospice care at the same time as their father and somehow the bodies were mixed up.

“The only other thing I can say is we know where he really is,” Randy Moon said. “We’re a believing family, and we believe he is in heaven.”




http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/10/23...uring-funeral/
http://www.chronline.com/news/articl...a4bcf887a.html

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[calisphere]

Wait... there was a picture of the right man under the pillow in the coffin? So the person who set up the coffin and tucked the photo there didn't look and notice that the man in the picture was not the man in the coffin? Were they blind?

[Kanda444]

the stories that come out of Washington state sometimes... just... wow...

[Spiffyfable]

Morticians are human and make mistakes too. Not to mention... most of them are also raging alcoholics and druggies

[Pyramid_Head]

As if losing a loved one isn't hard enough.