The burials of four accident victims from Laguna Woods -- 1 on Sunday, the others Monday, was corrected following mix-up.
By Greg Hardesty
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Rheta Kanter is resting next to her husband, Bruce, at Pacific View Memorial Park in Corona del Mar.
She joined her late husband there Monday morning – one day after more than 200 relatives and friends watched what they thought was her body be lowered into a grave.
Due to a mix-up that local funeral home officials blame on medical or mortuary officials in Tennessee, the body that was buried in Kanter's grave Sunday was that of her dear friend, Judith Stele.
Kanter, 72, Stele, 66, Stele's husband, Brandt, 69, and Gloria Friedman, 65 – all of Laguna Woods – were killed in a violent car crash last week on a highway outside of Memphis.
Now, compounding their grief, Kanter' relatives say they are extremely upset about the mix-up – which was corrected this morning.
"This was incompetence,'' said Russ Reinoehl, the son-in-law of Rheta Kanter. He spoke for Kanter's daughter, Wendy, who was too distraught to comment. "No one should have to go dig up a body."
Kanter, the Steles and Friedman died Wednesday during a cross-country road trip to visit Friedman's fifth grandchild, who – in a twist of fate – was born in Charlotte, N.C. less than three hours after the four seniors perished.
The Tennessee Highway Patrol still is investigating why the 2003 Toyota Avalon driven by Judith Stele veered into oncoming traffic and slammed into an 18-wheeler, instantly killing the four occupants on Interstate 40 in Henderson County.
Two memorial services were held: one Sunday, for Rheta Kanter, and one today, for the Steles and Friedman, who have adjacent plots at Harbor Lawn-Mt. Olive Memorial Park in Costa Mesa.
Russ Reinoehl provided the following account:
On Friday, Wendy Reinoehl and her siblings called a Los Angeles mortuary they hired to prepare Kanter's body, which had arrived by plane from Tennessee that day.
"Do we need to go and identify her body?" Wendy Reinoehl asked Sandy Fine, a funeral director at Malinow and Silverman Mortuary.
Fine told them no – that their mother's body was not intact, and that identifying her would not be allowed. All four crash victims suffered horrific injuries, officials say – making identification difficult, including whose personal belongings were whose.
The bodies of the other three crash victims were flown out separately to Harbor Lawn-Mt. Olive, and arrived early Saturday.
Just after what they thought was a funeral for their mother Sunday, the Kanter family was given a bag containing what they were told contained her jewelry.
They were expecting to see her wedding ring, the Star of David necklace she always wore, and anything else she was wearing the day she was killed.
The Kanters did not recognize the three rings they were given: a platinum band, a gold band and a ring with a ruby stone. They immediately told an employee at Harbor Lawn about the mix-up.
After talking to relatives of the other crash victims, the Kanter family discovered that the jewelry belonged to Judith Stele – and that it was she who was resting next to the remains of Bruce Kanter, who died in 1992.
A lot of phone calls were made, paperwork was exchanged, and at 10 a.m. today, a half-dozen relatives of Rheta Kanter watched as the body of Judith Stele was dug up from the ground.
Cemetery workers used a bulldozer to exhume a concrete white vault that held a pine casket that contained Stele's remains. They made the switch at the cemetery, and Rheta Kanter's body was buried, in a brief ceremony, where it was supposed to have been buried Sunday.
At 1 p.m. in Costa Mesa, Judith Stele was buried alongside her husband and Friedman.
Fine, the official at Malinow and Silverman who was hired by the Kanter family to dispose of their mother's remains, said in a brief telephone interview, "I have no comment. It has nothing to do with us. It's a tragedy."
Curt Owen, a funeral director at Service Corp. International, which owns both Pacific View and Harbor Lawn, blamed officials in Tennessee for the mistake.
He said his organization picked up the remains of three bodies from Los Angeles International Airport that were identified as the Steles and Friedman.
He said the mistake had to have occurred at a mortuary that was contracted to send the remains to California – Reed's Chapel in Lexington, Tenn. – or at Henderson County Community Hospital, where the remains initially were sent.
Officials at Reed's Chapel and the hospital could not be reached late today.
"No California funeral home was at fault here,'' Owen said. "Funeral homes sometimes get a bad name. In this case, we did everything in our power to make sure the situation was corrected.''
Russ Reinoehl said the mix-up has caused the Kanter family deep anguish.
"It was terrible to be told that our mother was in pieces,'' he said, referring to the condition of Judith Stele. He said he later found out that his mother's body was not as traumatized.
Reinoehl noted that four close friends who spent a lot of time together ended up being buried on the same day together.
"We're trying to look at the bright side,'' he said.
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