Detroit Free Press

DETRIOT – As two tiny Michigan towns dealt with the joy and sorrow caused by an incredible identity mix-up, details emerged Thursday about missed opportunities that might have kept one family from believing it was burying a daughter and another from believing its loved one had survived.

Laura VanRyn, 22, of Caledonia, Mich., died in an April 26 car crash in Indiana – and she had no facial injuries, said Grant County Coroner Ron Mowery. But no relative did any visual identification.

That oversight might have prevented the unthinkable, Mowery said.

At the site of the accident on I-69 that killed four other Taylor University students and a staff member, VanRyn was confused for Whitney Cerak, now 19, another student involved in the crash. That misidentification continued for five weeks, with Cerak recovering as VanRyn’s family sat by her bedside, believing she was their daughter and sister.

Cerak’s parents buried a body they believed was their daughter. Authorities confirmed Wednesday it was VanRyn.

On Thursday, Mowery said that although he takes responsibility for the mistake, a family member of Cerak’s traveled to a temporary morgue to identify the body. But one of his deputy coroners advised the family member against it.

After conferring with Taylor University students and possibly staff, the relative decided against viewing the body, he said.

The relative “was already experiencing so much pain and trauma and ultimately decided against it,” Mowery said. “There’s a possibility that she could have viewed the body and realized it wasn’t her sister. . . . But that’s hindsight. It was suggested to her that she not go back there and that an identification had already been made.”

Mowery reiterated how school faculty had helped identify victims at the crash site and a rescue worker incorrectly tagged VanRyn’s identification to Cerak before she was flown to a hospital.

Mowery has maintained that he is not required to obtain family confirmation in order to identify a body. But experts say that and more should be done.

School officials did not return phone calls Thursday to answer Mowery’s claim.

The identity switch was discovered this week as Cerak began to identify herself as her recovery progressed, bringing international attention to the hard-struck towns of Caledonia, VanRyn’s home near Grand Rapids, and farther north in Gaylord, Mich., where nearly 1,400 people attended the closed-casket funeral more than a month ago for a young lady they had believed was Cerak.

Faith Ackerman, 27, a member of the Gaylord Evangelical Free Church, was there. On Wednesday, she was working at Brothers Coffee & Tea when she heard that Cerak had survived and, that because of the mistake, VanRyn had been buried instead.

“The general feeling at first is just shock,” Ackerman said. “Then you’re thinking you’re happy she’s alive – but then you think about the other family.

“It’s unfathomable. I can’t grasp it yet.”

The Ceraks are a popular family, and Whitney known as an athletic, independent young woman whose roots are firmly planted in her Christian faith. In recent weeks, mourners gathered at Fairview Cemetery to say goodbye to Cerak, leaving flowers at the gravesite.

But now it’s VanRyn’s grave, the temporary marker removed Wednesday night, cemetery workers said. There was only a slightly sunken hole with patches of spotty grass poking through.

An employee at Nelson Funeral Home said they hadn’t heard if and when the casket would be exhumed and taken to Caledonia, a drive of 190 miles. VanRyn’s family has a memorial service planned for Sunday, however.

Cerak is expected to remain in the hospital in Grand Rapids, instead of transferring immediately to a place closer to home. Most of her family is there with her and was unavailable for comment Thursday.

At Gaylord Intermediate School, where Cerak’s mother works as a gym teacher, principal Rich Marshall said he almost panicked Wednesday when word began filtering in that Whitney Cerak was alive.

But after confirming the news, teachers in each classroom read a one-paragraph statement to the children Thursday morning.

“We’re trying to help them comprehend something that’s incomprehensible to us,” Marshall said. “I know the Ceraks well enough to know they’re really hurting for the VanRyns right now.”

Students at Gaylord High School began hearing rumors that their former classmate was alive over the lunch hour Wednesday.

Some students said they screamed and jumped up – alongside their teachers – when they heard.

Kelsie Sereno, 15, a freshman, said the news was just as shocking as the word she received five weeks ago that Cerak was killed.

“I didn’t believe it then,” said Kelsie, who’d talked to several teachers about Cerak’s supposed death after the accident. Now, “It’s just, wow,” she said.

In VanRyn’s hometown, much of the talk was laced with sorrow for the friendly teen with the ready smile who folks thought had survived the deadly crash.

At Thornapple High School, where VanRyn graduated in 2002, principal Ellen Zack said she and her staff found out about the error on Wednesday afternoon when a friend of the family called the school to alert them.

“I just wondered how something like this could happen,” Zack said. “It’s just so fresh.”

Hundreds of outpourings of grief flooded a blog where the religious VanRyn family had posted scriptures and progress reports on the woman they believed was Laura.

“God bless you and your family,” one unsigned note read. “May the Lord give you strength through this incredibly tragic time. You are in the entire country’s prayers. May God give you peace.”

Whitney Cerak’s grandfather, Emil Frank of Portland, Maine, said Thursday the Ceraks are exulting over their daughter’s survival but are mindful of the VanRyns’ pain.

“It’s God’s peace that will keep them going,” Frank said. “Their child, of course, is in God’s hands. They know that.”

He said Whitney’s condition continues to improve and, with her family around her, she had her hair done and even did her own lipstick.

When her father arrived at her side Wednesday, “He just grabbed her and he just wept and wept and wept for joy.”