Imagine the horror of getting a call that your child is dead. Imagine notifying your relatives and friends, grieving the loss and holding the memorial. Eleven days after the $20,000 memorial service you get a call telling you that your son is not in fact dead.
Could this happen? It actually did happen.
An Orange County family was called and told their beloved son was found dead outside of a cellular phone store in Fountain Valley. The son, Frank Kerrigan junior, was 57. He suffered from a mental illness and had been homeless. The family attempted to identify the body but due to the condition of the body it was difficult to ascertain whether or not it was Frank.
The family was told that the body had been identified through fingerprints. That was not, however, the case. The identification was made by an old Department of Motor Vehicles photo.
The family, understandably shocked, is trying to understand why and how such an egregious mistake could be made. “He was not given the dignity and the due-diligence in the process that a normal citizen of Orange County would get,” Frank’s sister Carol Meikle said in an interview.
Easton & Easton, LLP has been hired to hold the negligent parties accountable. View the news coverage of this story.
ES