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Families Of Teens Killed In Cantonment Wreck Filing Suit After Their Bodies Were Allegedly Switched
March 6, 2020
The families of two teens killed in car crash last year in Cantonment are filing suit, claiming their bodies were switched and misidentified from the crash scene to their funeral homes.
The Florida Highway Patrol said following the July 2019 crash that Dalchunique S. Lavender, age 20 of Cantonment, was northbound on Highway 95A at Coweta Road, just south of McKenzie Road, when her 2007 Ford Focus left the roadway and struck a utility pole about 1:20 a.m. The vehicle wrapped around the pole and came to rest between Highway 95A and adjacent railroad tracks.
Two of her passengers, 15-year old Samara Cooks and 18-year old Deleigha T. Gibson, both of Cantonment, were pronounced deceased on the scene. Lavender and passenger Alexandria R. Banks, 18, were critically injured.
The families of Cooks and Gibson are filing suit against the “Florida Highway Patrol, the Pensacola District Commander, Escambia County Coroner, Escambia County Medical Examiner’s Office and the funeral homes who handled the teens’ funeral arrangements after it was revealed that they were misidentified at the crash scene,” according to Ryan Julison of The Cochran Firm.
Julison said in an emailed statement Thursday night:
“According to the complaints, even though Gibson and Cooks were different ages, heights and weights, FHP troopers misidentified their bodies at the scene of the crash which led to Gibson being labeled as Cooks and vice-versa. This switch led to a series of other incidents involving the Coroner, Medical Examiner and funeral homes.
“The complaints allege that when the Medical Examiner received the bodies, it did not properly verify the identity of the bodies and as a result, the bodies remained incorrectly labeled. Despite their attempts, neither family was allowed to view their respective daughters’ bodies at the Medical Examiner’s office with the ME citing it was ‘not their policy’ to allow for the viewing.
“The Medical Examiner then released the wrong bodies to the wrong funeral homes who then embalmed the wrong bodies without authorization and in a way that was unsatisfactory to both families.
“Upon arriving at Faith Chapel, the funeral home hired by the Cooks family to prepare Samara Cooks’ body, they discovered that the body being prepared was actually that of Deleigha Gibson. One of the Cooks’ family members arrived at Tracy Morton Funeral Home, where the Gibson family was waiting, and stated that the funeral home had the wrong body. When the Gibson family overheard this conversation, they demanded to see Deleigha’s body and it was only then that the funeral home confirmed that they actually had the body of Samara Cooks, who was still tagged as Deleigha Gibson.
“To add an unprecedented layer to this horrific tragedy, Deleigha Gibson was an organ donor and because her body was misidentified, Gibson’s body was not properly handled and her organs were not preserved. Conversely, upon information and belief, Samara Cooks, who was not an organ donor, had her organs harvested without parental consent.
“The families of Gibson and Cooks are demanding that Florida Highway Patrol, Pensacola District Commander, Escambia Coroner, and Escambia Medical Examiner change their respective policies and procedures to ensure that this doesn’t happen to another family.”
Attorney Jessica Givens of The Cochran Firm is representing the family of Gibson, and Attorney Artie Shimek of Shimek Law is representing the Cooks family.
Pictured: A tragic wreck claimed two lives and injured two others in Cottage Hill early Monday morning. NorthEscambia.com photos by Kristi Barbour, click to enlarge.
Comments
40 Responses to “Families Of Teens Killed In Cantonment Wreck Filing Suit After Their Bodies Were Allegedly Switched”
So many experts please put on a HP, EMS or Fire uniform on before you judge these people. You don’t know the condition of the patients at the crash site
Had a discussion on FB with someone about this. Its tragic and plain awful. Safeguards need to be put in place. But monetary compensation, heck no. There was no intent, no malice to do harm here. Things happen. If it were my child, id be pissed. However, i wouldn’t go to Hollywood with a press conference. I wouldn’t have an attorney thats got me scripted out trying to manipulate the situation into a get rich quick scheme. Yet, in today’s liberallly wacko world, id imagine their gonna get a small fortune ,undeservedly so. I wonder if they feel their owed money. No doubt they’ll win an Oscar.
@greg g yeah okay, they’ll probably get way more than a dime.. andnbe careful what you wish for. You never know when something may happen to someone you love.
@Mortifyed
Mortified synonym of “horrify, I infer that is the implied reference.
A bad thing for families to endure.
It’s all about cashing in…..I hope they don’t get a dime!
If this isn’t about the cash, then why not approach this in a different manner, because it doesn’t pay, yes this is horrible and should not have happened nor should it ever happen again.
Julie. “Mortified” means embarrassed.
Tom i pray it dont happen to u how u keep it from happening let the parents verify the bodies
As a parent I am mortified that this happened. This situation just added to the trauma of losing their children. The fact that NOTHING was in place to obviously prevent this from happening or the fact that the responsible party’s did not do their jobs efficiently or properly is just plain disturbing. And not just one entity, but multiple departments dropped the ball. If it initially was dropped by FHP, then it was dropped again by the ME office and continued on down the line. If it was me I would sue. When you do something wrong find a way to make it RIGHT! And then prevent if from ever happening again. And that is what needs to happen here. The parents should win the lawsuit. That is the only way these offices will ever fix the problem and remember what did happen, and make sure it NEVER happens again.
@TOM- you can expect them to do it because it is their job. It isn’t something you just kind of try to do. It is your job. What if one was dead and the other in a coma. Would it be okay to just mix the two up then and tell a family that a loved one was dead and they weren’t? Or tell one a loved one is clinging to life only to find that they were dead? It is their job to identify bodies in these situations and to get it right. At each level of this lawsuit, the troopers, the ME and the funeral home. What if the girl whose organs were harvested did not want to donate because of religious or cultural reasons? Legally, that is desicration of a corpse and a crime. I am not one for suing folks just to sue them to make profit of a tragic situation, but this is a big screw up and someone should be held liable for it if not just to ensure practices are in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Most government entities don’t fix a problem unless they get sued for it or it garners serious media attention. This will force someone to take a look.
The Loss Of a Child is such a Dramatic Loss. Then to have Be Hurt even more by someone Gross Neglected behavior to your Love One is a Tragedy! Prayed & Comfort for theses Families….. Doesn’t blame them!
Apparently I have some terrible people as neighbors.
This is so sad… This happened many many years ago from my home state when I was a ME assistant we had 2 male bodies with 1 head we actually had to allow a parent in just to ID the body and head when next swift came in it was sent to wrong funeral home mistagged it was hobble my heart broke for the love ones…they won case…neglect of mishandled of a corpse. My prayers and thoughts and may the families find some sort of peace and comfort during this time.
@someone
It seems that you are able to identify a 15 year old and an 18 year old just by looking at them. I myself couldn’t as there are 15 year old girls that look 20 by the way they dress. Just saying.
You all are too focused on what the family is doing. Why not worry that the police and the medical examiner are doing their jobs incorrectly, and not up to code?
@ Tee bug AND Tom….from the same litter?
Prayers to the family, no words said can comfort you at this time but know God is with you.
He is good!
What is wrong with some of you people?! The MedicalExaminer should be the one to be sued! The girls had different heights and weights and this mistake should not have been made during an autopsy if they were doing their job right!!! And how do some of you know the bodies were “mangled”? One of the Girls had her organs donated, which can’t be done with a lot of trauma to the body and internal organs. This is a horrible situation and to only find out prior to the funeral, after the bodies are embalmed. They have a right to sue and have any of you thought that suing might just prevent this terrible thing from happenig to your loved one taken from you? I hope they get something out of this, they deserve it after what these families have endured!
I was at the funeral of Deleigha Gibson. It was an open casket and her face was not damaged in the way @Tom makes it seem. The family could and would clearly be able to identify they own child’s body, if the ME would’ve let them come see their child. This is cause for a lawsuit. Cooks was 15! The ME should have known the difference between a 15 year old and an 18 year old.
@ Tom, you are the most Deliverance minded person the whole world knows you are.
A granddaughter of mine was killed in a horrific crash in Gainesville in 2012
11 people died their in that pileup on I75
My granddaughter along with her father and step mother were incinerated under a semi…did you get that..incinerated!
They were identified positive though incinerated through, jewelry , dental records, placement in the truck..DNA .
Larry Badore medical examiner who was over Hurricane Katrina and he 911 incident verified this.
You are the most uneducated imbecile in the world.
If you want to sue someone .sue the person that killed them.
This is so ridiculous no body knew what the body looked like plus they were damaged perhaps by the wreck I would say no law suit here!
As horrible as this is, I thought that the ME would ask the next of kin to confirm the identity of the deceased! Going to court seem to be the only way to get the attention of the authorities! I feel sure that the families are not trying to “cash in” on this situation but identification of the deceased is important to the families and authorities. Prayers for the families!
@ Tom DO NOT donate your heart BECAUSE you DON’T have one!!!!! How would you feel to go and find out it’s not your love one!!!
The driver of the car is who should be sued.
Dont let me be on the jury…
ZERO…. NADA..
agree with Tom.
It can happen.life isn’t perfect.
Dear familys.
It wont bring them back to life
Not sure why they are suing the Funeral Home, for the mix up. All the funeral home gets is paperwork from the Medical Examiner stating the identity of the individual. Ankle bands are on the deceased and it is checked against the paperwork.
I thought someone in the family had to identify the remains in order to make positive identification.I can see how the Highway Patrol can make a mistake but this should have been caught.I agree procedures should be changed to insure this doesn’t happen again.I had to identify my sisters remains over 30 years ago it still haunts me today. Sorry the family had to go through this ordeal.
No wonder lawyers rank right next to used car salesmen in integrity! They should be forced to accompany first responders to wrecks with mangled bodies and belongings strewn about. Disgusting
@ Tom, you pretty much have -0- compassion. Imagine your teenage daughter is suddenly dead in a tragic car accident, you are not allowed to view the body,(which would have immediately corrected the situation) she is an organ donor and she is not given the honor of following through on that last wish. Yea, there is a major screw up here and someone should be held accountable.
Your heart is about 10 sizes too small.
In light on one being an organ donor, you would think there would have been special care and attention. Unless the donor’s ID was not present. Hopefully better procedures will be a result. Pretty traumatizing for already distraught people whose children were horrifically killed.
These people just trying to get a check bro accident happen
This is sad. Trying to get money off of your child’s death. Things happen. There is nothing we can do now
Should this make it to court, it will be an interesting case.
So are they filing a monetary suit or one to change the way things are handled? I can see the latter and possibly enough money to cover expenses any of the mishandling of their loved one. But trying to get millions off tragedies doesn’t make the hurt go away and actually is biblically wrong.
What a crock ! Trying to cash in on the death of a child. How could you expect someone to correctly identify a person they have never met. Not to mention the condition the bodies most likely were in.
Wow. This is just bad any way you cut it. Unexpectedly losing family is hard enough on its own, this is just insult to injury. Hope they win. Big.
Well y’all should pay for that mistake.