Parents mistakenly identify a corpse in Croatia as their daughter

Published November 17, 2014

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — A month ago, a mother and father identified a body in a morgue as their daughter's. A funeral was held and the family mourned its loss.

But it turned out that 39-year-old Tea Buric was still alive. This week police found her when they showed up at an apartment in the southern city of Split to investigate a report of domestic violence.

Buric was disoriented and lacked identification, so police checked her fingerprints and discovered she had been identified by her family as dead.

The body found floating in the Split harbor on April 15 turned out to be that of a 44-year-old woman who had disappeared earlier that month, Split police said.

Police spokeswoman Marina Kraljevic-Gudelj said in an interview on Thursday that police didn't use DNA to identify the well-preserved corpse because four relatives, including the parents, had identified it.

Local experts also said the DNA procedure, considered expensive in Croatia, is generally only used if a corpse cannot be identified or appears to have been the victim of a crime.

The parents of Buric and the 44-year-old deceased woman declined to discuss the case.

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