Coroner Hanging It Up After Taylor Student Death Identity Mistake

They won't have Ron Mowery to kick around anymore. The Grant County Coroner, who misidentified a living Taylor University student as one who died in an I-69 crash last month, is calling it quits at the end of the year. Mowery tells the Detroit Free Press that he's not cut out for the job. “I’m a career law enforcement officer,” Mowery said Thursday. “The decision to leave this position is something I decided before this tragedy, which has taken a huge toll on me.”

Laura VanRyn of Caledonia died in the deadly collision of a Taylor University van full of students with a semi-tractor trailer. Her classmate, Whitney Cerak of Gaylord, Michigan was airlifted to a a hospital. Mowery misidentified VanRyn's body as that of Cerak's. Not until Cerak came out of a coma and told VanRyn's family, who had spent weeks by her bedside, that her name was Whitney and not Laura was the mistaken identity discovered. “There was a misidentification and I don’t think you could classify it any other way,” Mowery said today.