The medical examiner’s office botched the identification of a Bronx woman killed in the Nov. 12 American Airlines Flight 587 crash, forcing her grieving family to hold two wakes and burials.
Relatives of Luz Maria Lendof, 63, had laid her to rest last week in the Dominican Republic – or so they believed. The medical examiner’s office told Lendof’s family Wednesday it had made a clerical error, resulting in the wrong remains being buried in Lendof’s grave.
“I want to have this nightmare come to an end,” Lendof’s heartbroken son, Ruffino Hernandez, said last night through an interpreter. Family and friends said goodbye – again – last night at another wake for Lendof at McGonnell Funeral Home in Washington Heights.
Lendof’s remains were tagged with a wrong identification number, so her family was given partial remains of another victim, said medical-examiner spokeswoman Ellen Borakove.