Source: WISH-TV / other
ANDERSON, Ind. — Imagine getting a phone call from the police letting you know that your son, daughter, or other loved one is dead, only to find out a few days later that they are alive.
That happened to Natalie Markham in Anderson this week. On Sunday, police pulled a body from the White River in Anderson. It had a driver’s license with it that belonged to Kevin Markham.
“So, they come and show me his driver’s license and then they show me a picture of him in a body bag on the bank of the White River.” Natalie Markham said on WISH-TV. “So, now we are on the phone with family in California, tell them. Everybody is being told that this boy of 32 is dead.”
She said from the picture the cops took it looked like her son, who struggles with mental illness and lives on the streets of Anderson.
By Tuesday, an autopsy was performed and on Wednesday other next of kin were notified, which included Kevin’s girlfriend. However, when the cops told the girlfriend Kevin was dead, a man with her said to the cops: “I’m not dead.”
“This is like 1:30 in the afternoon, and the police officer calls me, and I’m at a friend’s house grieving, and he says ‘I think we have a problem’, and I could hear him in the background,” she said.
DNA was then taken from both Kevin and his mother to confirm for sure that he was Kevin Markham. Natalie Markham said that this all could have been avoided had she been able to see the body in person to identify it in the first place. The reason is that Kevin has unique tattoos on his arms. The body pulled from the river does not.
“People need to have a place where they can come in and identify their loved ones in a safe light, and also not in front of a bunch of people,” she said.
The Madison County coroner’s office said in a statement that the body’s identity was “confirmed by his next of kin in accordance with Indiana law.” The coroner was later able to figure out who the man pulled from the river actually was through fingerprints.
