Family members of the actual victim were the ones who told the morgue they had an “identity problem,” after spotting her car in a news report about a hit and run.
One family breathed a massive sigh of relief, while another was faced with a heartbreaking reality following a case of mistaken identity stemming from a fatal car accident.
On May 22, Nichole Kent was killed in a hit-and-run after a pickup truck reportedly ran a red light in East St. Louis, Missouri shortly after midnight. But less than five hours later, sheriffs went to the home of Mae and Charlie Ferguson and informed them their daughter, Danika Ferguson, was the one who died.
Danika, however, wasn’t even in the vehicle.
According to Fox 2, the Fergusons spent the next 10 hours making arrangements for the funeral and organ donations, as well as telling their grandchildren — who they were babysitting at the time as Danika moved into a new apartment — what happened.
Kent’s family, however, started to suspect something was off when they saw a news report about the accident, spotted Nichole’s car and couldn’t get in contact with her. Her mother, Cynthia Mobley, then reportedly called the morgue.
“I told the city morgue that they have an identity problem,” Mobley told Fox 2 in an earlier interview this month. “I told her you need to look at that body you have down there and tell me if it has a sleeve tattoo. I said, ‘And there’s going to be a flower on one side,’ and she says, ‘a Hello Kitty.’ And I said, ‘You’ve got Nichole Kent.'”
Kent and Ferguson are distant relatives and, according to Nichole’s sister, someone in the car had Danika’s ID on them. “She lost her ID a couple months back, and I guess my sister and my little brother had it, and they were going to give it back to her,” she explained.
According to Mae Ferguson, a hospital worker told her a survivor in the crash said, “Where’s Danika?”, leading them to believe she was the one who died.
Danika, however, was later found asleep in her new apartment, with a phone whose battery had died.
“I’m alive,” Danika exclaimed in an interview with Fox 2. “They said, ‘Your mother thinks you’re dead, this county thinks you’re dead, call your mom!”
The hospital has not responded to the outlet’s request for comment, though Sheriff Darin Layman — who Fox noted was not at fault — did offer an apology and requested that not only will all death notifications be sent directly to him going forward, but said notifications “will also require a written message.”
“Every single morning, I wake up and I think my daughter’s gone and then it kicks in that, ‘No, wait, she’s ok; I have her still,'” Mae told the outlet. “She’s my baby. She always will be.”
Clermont County Sheriff’s Office
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