Mix-up leads to cremation of wrong body after friends' fentanyl poisoning

04 March 2024 , 04:16

1101     0

Luke Comiskey died from fentanyl poisoning

An autopsy mix-up led to the cremation of the wrong body after two friends died from fentanyl poisoning.

Kane Mitchell, 30, and Luke Comiskey, 31, died in April 2022 after consuming fentanyl-laced drugs allegedly bought from a man one of them had met a day earlier in Florida. The friends, from Dublin, Ireland, were discovered at their apartment by their employer who had checked in on them after they missed work, the Pinellas Park Police Department said.

Now, it appears a mislabeled report led to the wrong body being cremated after a Florida funeral home shipped the men’s remains to Ireland, according to a letter from a Florida medical examiner’s office. One was reportedly cremated and the other was not, according to the wishes of the families.

READ MORE: Child killing Doomsday mum Lori Vallow seen giggling in chilling new bodycam footage

Kane Mitchell died from fentanyl poisoning

The tragic mistake was discovered in July, three months after their deaths, the men’s families noticed discrepancies in the autopsy reports that led authorities to discover an error in the labeling of the remains, reports CNN.

Kamala Harris and George Floyd's brother among hundreds at Tyre Nichols funeral

The men’s families realized Mitchell’s remains, previously thought cremated, were buried in Comiskey’s family plot in Dublin. They also learned that Comiskey, not Mitchell, had been cremated.

A CNN request under open-records law revealed documents confirming the mix-up, including letters from the Irish consulate in Atlanta to the medical examiner’s office and investigators involved in the case. While the bodies were initially identified correctly when first found at their home, the error reportedly occurred when their tags “were crossed up” in subsequent labeling.

After looking at digital photos, past documents, and verifying the past injuries and tattoos on the victims, the District Six Medical Examiner'S office determined that their remains had been mislabeled (Google)

In the August 2022 letter, the District Six Medical Examiner Office said it assigned case numbers to each victim after police alerted them to the deaths.

“Per the desires and at the direction of the families, arrangements were made for both decedents to be transferred to Ireland for services and final disposition,” the letter said. “Both decedents were released from the Medical Examiner Office to a local funeral home in St. Petersburg, Florida, on April 27, 2022.”

After looking at digital photos, past documents, and verifying the past injuries and tattoos on the victims, the medical examiner’s office determined that their remains had been mislabeled.

Abigail O'Leary