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Wrong corpse presented to family; correct remains cremated

24 Comments

Police on Sunday said that a mortuary returned the wrong remains of a deceased man to his bereaved family in Nasushiobara, Tochigi Prefecture. The mistake was discovered within 30 minutes, but by the time the morgue was alerted, the correct remains had already been cremated. Police have apologized to both families.

The skeletal remains of a 65-year-old man were found in his apartment on Aug 21. The family of the deceased visited his remains at the morgue on Sept 5. They were mistakenly presented with the remains of a 44-year-old male who had also been found in the same state in an apartment on Aug 18. According to police, both bodies had been wrapped and the staff member involved failed to check the remains to verify the identity of the deceased.

© News reports

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24 Comments
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Messed up!

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Like something out if a Jeffery Deaver novel.

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I should hope the MORTUARY apologized to both families, and not just the police! Anyway, how can the family feel one hundred percent convinced they got the correct remains afterwards? I'm willing to bet the wrong remains (ashes) are presented to families a lot more often than is known about.

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These families should be compensated and not be charged for the cremation. This is just a very sad thing. All that the funeral parlor did was apologize for their incompetence. Is this a joke or what!!

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Not really if you have been to a cremation here you would know that the family watches the coffin going into the furnace and they are there again when the furnace is opened.

Reason it is normally the family that places the Bones into the urn from the tray on which the coffin sat. BTW, there is very little ashes with Japanese cremation.

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I don't think there is any financial compensation in this country for screwing up! They just apologize and the legions of obedient robots accept it as status quo.

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The families here pick out the bones with chopsticks and chop up the bones that are too big. Very creepy.

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Why are there so many bodies found decomposing months or years after death in Japan?

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Disillusioned, you raise a good point. The old guts "skeletal remains" were found in his apartment. WTF? How does it get to skeletal remains before a family member is discovered. It makes me seriously question whether the family deserve to be so out-raged at the mistaken identity made by the mortuary. If they sued and I was the judge, I'd be questioning if they deserved any money on emotional distress.

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sorry "guts" should read "guy"

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I don't think there is any financial compensation in this country for screwing up!

No, there often isn't. Which is one of the beauties of living here. No whining, litigious creeps out to make a fast buck out of someone's unfortunate error. And long may it remain thus.

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Keystone kops at it again.

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I went to a funeral in nasushiobara once. I have to say i wanted to punch the guy at the crematory, had no respect for anyone. The guy was pointing out the different bones to the family as if he was selling fried chicken. On top of that as the ashes were being placed in the box he was scooping them up like he was making okonomiyaki (sp). Theres a few places there, 3 that I can think of but, sounds like the same place.

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DXXJP.

You are aware that the bones are not placed randomly into the Urn.

They are arranged in a way that the "deceased" Person would be sitting inside the Urn, all the guy was doing is point out which Bones are which and which goes in next. Common procedure.

Yeah, rather a shocking mixup, bad Mortician/Morgue.

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They can't have cared for him too much in the first place if his remains were already 'skeletal' when discovered...

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@SumoBob

Yeah, I'd be incensed.

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ashes to ashes

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How many skeletal remains are out there waiting to be found??

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No sure what is more disturbing, the mix up with corpses or the fact 2 came from the same apartment building.

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@YuriOtani

or the fact 2 came from the same apartment building

Please read the article CAREFULLY.

"They were mistakenly presented with the remains of a 44-year-old male who had also been found in the same state in an apartment on Aug 18"

The article is referring to the FACT that the two remains were found in the same 'state', not the same apartment building!

Even if you read it carefully, it is still poorly written. That is typical for Kyodo News, but the reference for this article is "News reports", whatever that means.

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So whats the difference, i think it hardly matter to the family. The family never cares until they found the corpse.

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islandview, it is still disturbing they are finding people like this. It shows that a lot of people are alone in this world. You think somebody would of noticed that they were missing, this shows to me an indifferent attitude towards people by our society. Then again maybe I have hung around Americans too long and it rubbed off on me.

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Yuri.

OTOH, places where they were found make for cheap rental places.

Seen quiet a few top-places go for 75% OFF compared to units beside them as japanese don't want to rent a place/property where a death occured. Estate Agents have to disclose that fact.

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