Family Opens Casket and Finds Wrong Dead Man
Jerry Moon’s family opened his casket to say their final goodbyes at his funeral on Monday. But what they saw was not their father’s corpse: inside the casket was the body of an unknown man with a plastic bag over his head. Even worse, the dead man inside the casket was dressed in their father’s clothes and had a picture of their mother tucked under his arm.
The story gets even worse. When the family tried to track down Moon’s body so they could bury the right man, they learned he had already been cremated. Too bad Moon had explicitly told his children he was terrified of being cremated and never wanted it done to his body.
Officials with Hospice Care in Longview, Washington—where Moon was staying when he died—told the family they believe the body mix-up happened after the funeral home received the body. They also noted that a 97-year-old man died in their hospice at the same time as Moon and both were sent to the Brown Mortuary.
The Moon family is deeply upset about what has happened and says their only solace comes from knowing that their father, though cremated against his wishes, is now “in heaven.”
