Shooting victim mistakenly cremated in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - After a drive-by shooting victim was cremated by mistake, the coroner in New Orleans put part of the blame on inadequate morgue facilities and a high rate of violent and accidental deaths, which left bodies stacked on top of each other and stored for months in refrigerator trucks that sometimes fail.

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Lynnette Romero is a sweet smile to welcome party-goers.

Officials said Ralph Bias, a 20-year-old black man killed last week in a drive-by shooting on Interstate 10, was mistakenly cremated in place of a 60-year-old white man, after his body was turned over to the wrong funeral home.

On Wednesday, Orleans Parish coroner Dr. Frank Minyard said Bias' body had been stacked under another that was scheduled for cremation. The identification tags were tangled and the attendant read the wrong one, believing it was attached to Bias' body bag, he said.

Minyard acknowledged, however, that the attendant failed to open the bag and identify the body by the wrist band attached to it.

"I'm not going to deny responsibility in this," Minyard said. "This is a horrible error, on my part, my office's part. It was something that never happened before."

Others were to blame as well, Minyard said: the funeral home that picked up the body, the crematory, and the city which has failed to begin construction on a new morgue.

For more than seven months after Hurricane Katrina flooded the old morgue, Minyard worked out of the trunk of his car. The morgue is now housed in an old funeral home which does not have storage facilities for bodies, so they are stored in three refrigerator trucks out back.

They average 80 bodies a day in storage, Minyard said. Many are held for months.

"I think that it's bordering on criminal that we have to keep refrigerated trucks that are parked in the back parking lot," he said. "It's not right, it's inhumane."

Attorney Allain Hardin, who represents the Bias family, said he understands that the coroner's office is busy, but if procedures had been followed the mistake would not have happened.

"Mr. Bias was a 20-year-old black male. The person who was supposed to be cremated was a 60-year-old white male," Hardin said. "Louisiana law requires a positive identification by the family or someone in a position to make it before a body is taken to the crematory. One look and they would have been able to tell a mistake was made."