Man appears alive at own funeral in Brazil
RIO DE JANEIRO – A Brazilian bricklayer reportedly killed in a
car crash shocked his mourning family by showing up alive at his
funeral.
Relatives of Ademir Jorge Goncalves, 59, had identified him as
the victim of a Sunday night car crash in Parana state in southern
Brazil, police said.
As is customary in Brazil, the funeral was held the following
day, which happened to be the holiday of Finados, when Brazilians
visit cemeteries to honor the dead.
What family members didn't know was that Goncalves had spent the
night at a truck stop talking with friends over drinks of a
sugarcane liquor known as cachaca, his niece Rosa Sampaio told the
O Globo newspaper. He did not get word about his own funeral until
it was already happening Monday morning.
A police spokesman in the town of Santo Antonio da Platina said
Goncalves rushed to the funeral to let family members know he was
not dead.
"The corpse was badly disfigured, but dressed in similar
clothing," said the police spokesman, who talked on condition of
anonymity as he wasn't authorized to discuss the case. "People are
afraid to look for very long when they identify bodies, and I think
that is what happened in this case."
Sampaio told O Globo that some family members were not sure the
body was Goncalves.
"My two uncles and I had doubts about the identification," she
told O Globo. "But an aunt and four of his friends identified the
body, so what were we to do? We went ahead with the funeral."
The police spokesman confirmed there were doubts: "His mom
looked at the body in the casket and thought something was strange.
She looked and looked and couldn't believe it was her son," Sampaio
said. "Before long, the walking dead appeared at the funeral. It
was a relief."
The body was correctly identified later Monday, the police
spokesman said, and has already been buried in another state. He
declined to release the actual victim's name.
--AP
