Woman buries brother, discovers dead son

[mike r]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67J3P520100820

Woman buries brother, discovers dead son
PARIS | Fri Aug 20, 2010 12:58pm EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - A French woman discovered her 42-year-old son had been buried in the same cemetery where she was attending her brother's funeral, after she had tried to invite him to the ceremony, a newspaper said Friday.

The family were leaving the cemetery near Lille, Wednesday when one of them noticed a temporary wooden gravestone bearing the son's name and date of birth in an area reserved for poor people. "In two or three seconds, everybody started to scream," the man's father Elie Langlet told La Voix du Nord newspaper. "Josiane (the mother) collapsed. She buries her brother and finds her kid in a grave near him. It's unthinkable," he said.

The local council confirmed the father of one, Olivier, had died on July 5 from natural causes. Josiane Vermeersch said she had tried to contact her son a few days before to invite him to his uncle's funeral, to no avail, and had thought he was ignoring her after a row. "Someone hasn't done their job," she told news channel I-Tele. "I demand explanations," Vermeersch said, adding it was unbelievable in a time of modern technology that nobody had attempted to contact the family.

Citing the funeral parlor that buried the man, the newspaper said it was not uncommon for families not to be informed if there is no immediate contact address. French law stipulates that a burial must take place within six days of a death.

[AndyA]

1. How awful for that family!

You can't even imagine the shock. Sounds like an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Very sad.

[LiberalFighter]

2. They need to change their law about when burial must take place.

My sister wasn't even cremated until weeks after her death.

[iamthebandfanman]

3. old law im sure

probably had something to do with sanitary reasons