The Times reports a tragic case of mistaken identity has deepened the grief of a mother mourning her son — one of the LGBTQ+ victims of the deadly Air India crash in June.
Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek and his husband Jamie Ray were returning home to the U.K. after celebrating their wedding anniversary when their plane crashed, killing all 242 people on board.
Fiongal’s mother, Amanda Donaghey, flew to India to help identify her son’s remains through a DNA sample. Indian authorities told her a match had been found, and she brought home a casket — believing it contained her son — to bury him next to Jamie Ray, whose body had already been returned.
But back in the U.K., a British coroner found the remains were not a DNA match.
“We don’t know what poor person is in that casket,” Donaghey told The Times. “This is an appalling thing to have happened.”
Fiongal and Jamie Ray were well known in the LGBTQ+ wellness community, running The Wellness Foundry and sharing their journey openly online. A final social media post from the airport before their flight has since gone viral.
Fiongal’s case is not isolated. Another grieving family also learned the remains they brought home from India belonged to someone else.