Family opens casket, finds wrong dead man inside

The man at Jerry Moon's Washington funeral earlier this month was wearing Jerry Moon's clothes and surrounded by his grieving family. But the man in the casket was not Jerry Moon.

A body mix-up involving a mortuary and the hospice where the Lewis County, Wash. man died left Moon's children looking at another man's body when they opened the casket, while their father was cremated against his wishes, according to KGW.com.

Jerry died of bladder and colon cancer at the age of 72 at the Community Home Health & Hospice in Longview, the broadcaster reported. However, a 97-year-old man also died around the same time, according to KIROTV. The older man ended up in Moon's casket at the funeral organized by Brown Mortuary, along with a picture of Moon and his wife, Jan.

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His son, Brian Moon, told KGW.com the moment they discovered the mistake was very upsetting.

"I have this enormous pit in my stomach," Brian said, adding the family might file a lawsuit.

The Local reported a similar mix-up of bodies on Thursday that took place in Germany. A woman's coffin disappeared from a graveyard in Cologne and was at first thought to have been stolen when the family reported it missing to police. However, police discovered the graveyard had cremated the woman by accident, leaving another body that was supposed to have been cremated at the cemetery.

Earlier this year, loved ones at a funeral in Australia opened the coffin of the deceased, a man, and discovered a woman there instead.