NEW ORLEANS — A New Orleans Civil District judge found the Orleans Parish Coroner guilty after they misspelled a man’s name by one letter — leading his family on an emotional eight-month journey to look for him. Benjamin Pfantz died of an overdose in 2022, and his body was delivered to the coroner’s office on September 24, 2022.
The Orleans parish Coroner says they identified him as Benjamin Peantz, not Benjamin Pfantz. They said that the spelling came from NOPD, which had conducted the fingerprinting. The coroner’s chief investigator, Brian Lapeyrolerie, said when they entered the name into the system, nothing showed up, so they weren’t able to contact the next of kin.
A month later, Pfantz was cremated. Judge Kern Reese said the coroner’s efforts weren’t enough, as his family desperately searched for their son for months before the mix-up was sorted — even calling the coroner’s office several times…