In this Friday, June 23, 2017 photo, Frank Kerrigan holds onto a a funeral card for his son Frank, near Wildomar, Calif. Kerrigan, who thought his son had died, learned he buried the wrong man. Kerrigan... (Associated Press) 
 
 SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Eleven days after laying his son to rest, Frank J. Kerrigan got a call from a friend. 
 
 "Your son is alive," he said. 
 
 "Bill (Shinker) put my son on the phone," Kerrigan said. "He said 'Hi Dad.' " 
 
 Orange County coroner's officials had misidentified the body, the Orange County Register reported Friday (http://bit.ly/2tZSyZj). 
 
 The mix-up began on May 6 when a man was found dead behind a Verizon store in Fountain Valley. 
 
 Kerrigan, 82, of Wildomar, said he called the coroner's office and was told the body was that of his son, Frank M. Kerrigan, 57, who is mentally ill and had been living on the street. 
 
 When he asked whether he should identify the body, a woman said — apparently incorrectly — that identification had been made through fingerprints. 
 
 "When somebody tells me my son is dead, when they have fingerprints, I believe them," Kerrigan said. "If he wasn't identified by fingerprints I would been there in heartbeat." 
 
 Frank's sister, 56-year-old Carole Meikle of Silverado, went to the spot where he died to leave a photo of him, a candle, flowers and rosary beads. 
 
 "It was a very difficult situation for me to stand at a pretty disturbing scene. There was blood and dirty blankets," she said. 
 
 On May 12, the family held a $20,000 funeral that drew about 50 people from as far away as Las Vegas and Washington state. Frank's brother, John Kerrigan, gave the eulogy. 
 
 "We thought we were burying our brother," Meikle said. "Someone else had a beautiful sendoff. It's horrific." 
 
 The body was interred at a cemetery in Orange about 150 feet from where Kerrigan's wife is buried. 
 
 Earlier, in the funeral home, the grieving Kerrigan had looked at the man in the casket and touched his hair, convinced he was looking at his son for the last time. "I didn't know what my dead son was going to look like," he said. 
 
 Then came the May 23 phone call from Shinker. Kerrigan's son was standing on the patio. 
 
 It was unclear how coroner's officials misidentified the body. 
 
 Doug Easton, an attorney hired by Kerrigan, said coroner's officials apparently weren't able to match the corpse's fingerprints through a law enforcement database and instead identified Kerrigan by using an old driver's license photo. 
 
 When the family told authorities he was alive, they tried the fingerprints again and on June 1 learned they matched someone else, Meikle said. 
 
 Easton said the coroner's office provided the Kerrigan family with a name of that person, but the identification hasn't been independently confirmed. The attorney said the family plans to sue, alleging authorities didn't properly try to identify the body as Kerrigan's son because he is homeless. 
 
 Sheriff's Lt. Lane Lagaret, a spokesman for the coroner's office, declined to comment to the Register because an investigation was underway. 
 
 The mistaken death identification led the federal government to stop disability payments for her brother, Meikle said. The family is working to restore them. 
 
 Meikle said her brother chose to return to living on the street and doesn't understand how hard the mistake was on his family. 
 
 "We lived through our worst fear," she said. "He was dead on the sidewalk. We buried him. Those feelings don't go away." ||||| SANTA ANA — The already bizarre story of a homeless man who was misidentified as a dead transient, only to surprise his family by showing up very much alive, has taken another twist — a third body might be involved. 
 
 A lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses Orange County coroner officials of misidentifying a body found last year outside a Verizon store in Fountain Valley, and says they knowingly released the wrong body to a funeral home to conceal a mistaken identity blunder involving Frankie M. Kerrigan. 
 
 The suit, which seeks $5 million in damages, contends that Fountain Valley fire and police department reports gave descriptions of a body that looked nothing like Kerrigan, and that coroner officials ignored that description when they told Kerrigan’s relatives that he was dead. 
 
 The complaint also accuses the coroner’s office of knowingly passing off another corpse to Kerrigan’s family, hoping no one would notice. 
 
 Officials with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which runs the coroners office, declined to comment, noting they do not discuss pending litigation. 
 
 In June, after the mix-up was revealed — and when Kerrigan turned out to be alive — the county exhumed a body that was identified as John Dickens, 54, of Kansas. Dickens’ body was cremated and his ashes shipped to his family. 
 
 The Orange County coroner’s office has said Dickens was identified through fingerprints. Reports also show that Dickens’ body, at about 5 feet 10 inches tall, 170 pounds, with light brown hair, generally matches the description of Kerrigan. 
 
 “He fit into the clothes the Kerrigan family bought for Frankie’s funeral and burial,” said V. James DeSimone, a Marina del Rey attorney who is representing Frankie Kerrigan’s family. 
 
 But the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court, offers a possible new twist: The body found in Fountain Valley was neither Kerrigan nor Dickens. Instead, an official description of that body doesn’t match either man. 
 
 “There may be another family who doesn’t know about their deceased loved one,” said DeSimone. 
 
 DeSimone provided the Register with a Fountain Valley Fire Department report that describes the dead man as being about 65 years old and weighing about 250 pounds. A second report, from the Fountain Valley Police Department, says the body was discovered on the ground next to a wheelchair. 
 
 Kerrigan, a 57-year-old transient, is, like Dickens, about 170 pounds. He also has short, light-colored hair. And, like Dickens, Kerrigan does not use a wheelchair, DeSimone said. 
 
 The notion that a third body might be involved isn’t totally new to the Kerrigan story. 
 
 Robinson Ivory, a then 19-year-old Verizon employee who found the body behind the Fountain Valley store, said last year that the person he saw didn’t look like published photos of Frankie Kerrigan. 
 
 “He (the dead man) has long hair… And (he) was bigger than him (Frankie Kerrigan),” Ivory said. 
 
 The ordeal began May 6, 2017, when the Orange County coroner told Francis J. Kerrigan, 82, of Wildomar, that his son, Frankie, had been found dead. The elder Kerrigan says that when he asked coroner officials if he should identify his son’s body he was told it wasn’t necessary because the body had already been identified through fingerprints. 
 
 Meanwhile, Frankie Kerrigan’s sister, Carole Meikle, 56, of Silverado, went to the Fountain Valley location where she’d been told her brother died. Though she was told her brother died peacefully, she found a death scene covered in blood and dirty blankets, according to the lawsuit. 
 
 There were other inconsistencies as well, the Kerrigans claim. 
 
 Meikle, according to the lawsuit, was told that her brother had been found with a wallet that contained $56 and an identification card that confirmed his identity. But when his possessions were delivered to the family the wallet had no money or identification. What’s more, Frankie Kerrigan’s most prized possessions, which he carried with him at all times — a black attache case, a watch and a favorite writing pen — were missing. 
 
 Still, the Kerrigan family held a funeral. On May 12, at Holy Family Catholic Cathedral in Orange, about 50 people came from as far away as Washington state and Las Vegas to mourn Frankie Kerrigan. 
 
 Then, on May 23, Bill Shinker, of Stanton, a longtime family friend who had been a pallbearer at the funeral, called the elder Kerrigan to say that Frankie was alive and standing on the porch of his former home, also in Stanton. The younger Kerrigan soon got on the phone and said, “Hi, Dad, how are you doing?” 
 
 On June 7, the Orange County coroner’s office confirmed that the man erroneously identified and buried as Frankie Kerrigan was Dickens. 
 
 DeSimone believes Dickens’ body was not recovered outside of the Verizon store, and instead a third, unknown individual was found at the location. 
 
 “The coroner’s office realized the body recovered… looked nothing like Frankie sometime after informing (Francis) Kerrigan of Frankie’s death, but before releasing a body to (the funeral home),” DeSimone said, adding that the body they did release “looked close enough” to Kerrigan. 
 
 Chapman Funeral Home, named as a co-defendant in the lawsuit, also declined to comment. 
 
 No explanation has been provided from the Sheriff’s Department regarding how the mix-up occurred. 
 
 If the Kerrigans’ version of the mix-up is true, and a third body was found, it raises some questions: Where did the body found in Fountain Valley go? And who was he? 
 
 “It’s not that hard to keep track of dead people,” DeSimone said. “It’s not like they move around very much.” 
 
 RELATED: 
 
 Man believed dead is alive: Family buries wrong person after mix-up by coroner’s office 
 
 Wrong man buried? Coroner I.D.s body; wants to talk with family 
 
 Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigation into misidentified body may take up to a year 
 
 Body of man misidentified by Orange County coroner’s office removed from grave
– Eleven days after laying his son to rest, Frank Kerrigan got a call from a friend, the AP reports. "Your son is alive," he said. According to the Orange County Register, Orange County coroner's officials in California had misidentified the body. The mix-up began on May 6 when a man was found dead behind a Verizon store. Kerrigan, 82, said he called the coroner's office and was told the body was that of his 57-year-old son, also named Frank Kerrigan, who is mentally ill and had been living on the street. When he asked whether he should identify the body, a woman said—apparently incorrectly—that identification had been made through fingerprints. "When somebody tells me my son is dead, when they have fingerprints, I believe them," Kerrigan said. On May 12, the family held a $20,000 funeral that drew about 50 people, and the body was buried 150 feet from where Kerrigan's wife is buried. "Someone else had a beautiful sendoff," one family member said. "It's horrific." Then came the May 23 phone call from a friend; Kerrigan's son was standing on his patio. It's unclear how coroner's officials misidentified the body. An attorney for the family said the coroner's office apparently used an old driver's license photo when identifying the body as the younger Frank Kerrigan. The family plans to sue.