Story Of Michigan Morgue Employee Cremated By Mistake Is False

A tragic story about a napping morgue employee in Macomb County, Michigan, who was cremated by accident after a co-worker mistook him for a car crash victim was making the rounds on social media Wednesday evening. Screenshots of the story, featuring the ABC News logo and what appeared to be a photo of something labeled as a funeral home were prominently featured in the story.

In less than 24 hours, a tweet featuring screenshots of the story got more than 29,000 retweets and 36,000 likes on the website, and was still gaining more as Thursday progressed.

But what shocked readers may not have realized was that the story was completely made up. The article gives details, like the name of the man who was supposedly killed, who he was mistaken for, how long he screamed for after the “crematory was activated,” and how hot the crematory was allegedly turned up to. If the details of the story weren’t enough to make you wonder whether or not it was a legitimate story, the website it was on might be.

While the site does feature the ABC News logo, the link doesn’t match the official ABC News website. The fake story is hosted on a website called abcnews-us.com, the actual ABC News website is abcnews.go.com.

There is “no story,” the Macomb County Public Information Officer, John Cwikla, told International Business Times. Someone who works for the Macomb County Medical Examiner’s Office told CBS News that they don’t even do cremations there, and that nobody was cremated.

This isn’t the first time a fake story about a morgue employee accidentally killed on the job has made the rounds. A story with almost the same exact details caused concern online in March, at that time BuzzFeed reported that the story from a website called World News Daily Report was also a hoax.

International Business Times reached out to ABC News but had not received a response by the time that this article was posted.

In the "About" section of Abcnews-us.com, it reads, "ABC News in an award-winning satire newspaper based covering local state news. This website has no relation to ABCNews.go.com and any likeness is a miracle. This website is purely for comedic purposes."