Orange County Coroner’s 2017 Body Mix-Up Even Worse Than Reported

*Updated April 19, 2022

Feb. 14, 2018
SANTA ANA, Calif. — One afternoon last spring Frank Kerrigan was told that his homeless, mentally ill son was found dead behind a store in Fountain Valley, Calif. A funeral home received the body, a funeral was held and the family grieved the loss of Frankie Jr.

UPDATE: $1.5 Million in damages awarded for this case on April 19, 2022 – Read more.
 
For 17 days they believed Frankie was dead — until he showed up alive at a friend’s house. The story of his misidentification, and the Kerrigan family’s funeral for a stranger, made international headlines.
 
But how the Orange County Coroner’s Office could make such an error — a question that’s never been answered — just got more bizarre. That’s because the body found outside the store that morning is not the same one that was mistakenly buried, according to a lawsuit filed by the family in Orange County Superior Court Tuesday.
 
“Employees or agents at the Coroner’s office realized that the body recovered at the Verizon store looked nothing like Frankie sometime after informing Kerrigan of Frankie’s death but before releasing a body to Chapman Funeral Homes,” Attorney V. James DeSimone wrote in the lawsuit. To cover up the error, the lawsuit states, someone at the coroner’s office “released a body that … looked ‘close enough’ to Frankie… with the belief that no one would care because the deceased were homeless.”
 
“We don’t know how many other families could also be affected by this cavalier arrogance,” DeSimone said. “Is it because their family member happened to be mentally ill or homeless?”
 
Orange County and Chapman Funeral Homes are named in the lawsuit filed on behalf of Kerrigan Sr. and Frankie’s sister Carole Meikle, seeking damages for negligence, civil rights violations, negligent and intentional misrepresentation, concealment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
 
Loa Angeles attorney V. James DeSimone has dedicated his law career to providing vigorous and ethical representation to achieve justice for those whose civil and constitutional rights are violated.

Download the complaint: Complaint Kerrigan et al. v. Orange County et al.
 
DeSimone, Kerrigan and Miekle are available for interviews; contact Robert Frank at Newsroom PR: (206) 790-6324

Related News:

• OC Register update March 2022
• OC Register update April 2022
• KTLA April 2022
• KFI April 2022
• Fox 11 April 2022
• Patch April 2022

V. James DeSimone

Attorney V. James DeSimone is a 35+ year experienced civil rights & employment lawyer in Southern California. Jim is a Super Lawyer, Rated “Superb” by Avvo, and is a US News & World Report Best Law Firm in California.