The 22-year-old shocked the assembled crowd, who had gathered to pay him their last respects, and sparked questions – if he was here, who had been put inside the coffin?
Mourners at a funeral were stunned when the supposedly-deceased showed up fit and well at the service, telling the stunned congregation, “I’m alive!”.
The 22-year-old shocked the assembled crowd, who had gathered to pay him their last respects, and sparked questions with police eventually getting involved.
If the “departed” man was actually alive and well, who was in the casket? The confusion began after a young man was run over by a sugarcane truck last Thursday (September 18).
While suicide was suspected, prosecutors classified the case as negligent homicide and ordered an autopsy on the body. The following day a woman showed up at the police station claiming to be the deceased’s mother.
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She reportedly recognised the body by the clothing and some physical features and authorities were satisfied, letting the remains be released to the family who organised a wake over the weekend.
It was during the ceremony that the woman’s son, who has not been named, turned up and exclaimed to the shocked crowd that he wasn’t dead. The already-emotional mourners who had gathered to bid him farewell were shocked by his unexpected return.
According to reports, the red-faced son admitted that he had been away on a bender for several days in Alderetes, north of Cordoba, Argentina, and knew nothing of what was happening at home.
He was taken to the local police station where cops interviewed him, meanwhile the body was taken back to the morgue to try and establish its real identity. It was later found to belong to Maximiliano Enrique Acosta, 28, from the nearby town of Delfín Gallo.
The body was returned to Maximiliano’s family and a funeral was held in his hometown on Tuesday (September 23). However there was yet another administrative blunder.
When Maximiliano’s family were told that he was dead, they were allegedly shown a different body first. His brother Hernán fumed: “Everything was wrong from the beginning.
“First, they handed over the body without proper identification. Then they made me go to the morgue twice. We shouldn’t have to go through this after everything we suffered.”
The Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched an internal investigation to determine how the errors occurred.
