Police mistakenly identify body of teenager killed in car crash

POLICE in the US made a mistake identifying two teenagers in a car crash, leaving one set of parents wrongly thinking their son had died and the other parents keeping a bedside vigil by a hospital bed.

For days, one family kept a vigil for a bandaged-up boy whom they believed was their badly injured 16-year-old son.

Meanwhile, the other family prepared to bury the boy they thought was their dead 17-year-old. However, the moment Patrick Bement’s parents saw the face of the boy in the casket at the funeral home, they knew a terrible mistake had been made.

“We told them, ‘It’s not our son. It’s not Patrick’,” said Michele Bement, the boy’s stepmother.

The Antrim County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the error yesterday and said it was conducting an investigation. Sheriff Terry Johnson offered apologies to the families of both teens.

Deputies said they used dental records and fingerprints to positively identify the person killed in Saturday’s accident north of Alba, about 35 miles from Traverse City, Michigan. Relatives said the victim was Nathaniel Smith, aged 16.

Deputies said they found Bement’s identification near the body, which was ejected from the car, and believed the body to be his. Smith’s wallet and identification were in the boot, and the officers at the scene believed Smith was in the back seat with major head and facial injuries.