Mourners gather at memorial for college student in mistaken identity case

KENTWOOD, Mich. — For five weeks, he sat by her hospital bed, talked to her, held her hand.

During those many hours, Aryn Linenger said he never doubted he was comforting his beloved girlfriend of three years, Laura VanRyn.

"I saw her hands, her feet, her complexion, and I can't believe that it wasn't her," Linenger said during a memorial service for her Sunday at Kentwood Community Church.

VanRyn's family and friends were thankful she had survived the crash that killed five people, until it was revealed last week there had been a mix-up.

The young woman recovering in a Grand Rapids rehabilitation center for more than a month was not VanRyn but Whitney Cerak, a fellow Taylor University student who closely resembled VanRyn.

VanRyn's family planned to exhume the 22-year-old college senior's body, which was buried April 30.

"She brought more joy to us than we could ever imagine," her older brother Kenny VanRyn told the 1,900 people at the memorial service.

It is not yet known how the misidentification occurred at the scene of the April 26 crash along Interstate 69 near Marion, Ind.

Vickie Rhodes was at the wheel as eight passengers piled into four rows of seats in the Taylor University van for the run from the school's campus in Fort Wayne, Ind., back to Taylor's Upland, Ind., home.

Taking the front passenger seat was Connie Magers, 50, a food-service employee of the interdenominational Christian school, just like the 54-year-old Rhodes. Monica Felver, 53, settled behind Rhodes, and Michelle Miller, 43, sat behind Magers. Both were also food-service employees.

Then there were students who'd helped set up a banquet for the new president: Laurel Erb, 20, and Cerak were in the third row. Across the last row were seniors Elizabeth Smith, Bradley Larson and VanRyn.

Rolling north on the interstate was a 1996 Freightliner with Robert Spencer hauling a load of baking flour. Spencer, 37, of Canton, Mich., had had five tickets since 1999, as well as a warning letter from the Michigan Secretary of State's Office.

The van was 2 miles from the Marion exit at State Road 18 when Spencer's semi came barreling across the median.

The front of the truck knifed into the van just behind Rhodes, peeling back the sheet metal. Whirling in a wild spin as it crossed the pavement and a right of way, the van hit a ditch.

The Freightliner plowed across the ditch before stopping at a stand of trees. Spencer was injured in his abdomen and pelvis, but still alive. He'd later tell police he thought his left front tire failed.

Police said there was no indication of tire failure; witnesses said Spencer drifted out of his lane, according to the police report, "as if the driver had fallen asleep."

Inside the van, Magers was shaken; Miller had a dislocated shoulder and broken bones. But they were alive.

Rhodes was thrown from the van. So was Felver. So was everyone else. Now the living and dead were strewn together with purses, wallets and papers across the roadside.

In minutes, police, emergency workers and firefighters converged. Paramedic student Bob Bennett Jr. and shift supervisor Roger Eib were the first rescue workers at the scene.

Debris was spread out for more than 90 feet, and "there were bodies strewn everywhere," Eib said Saturday.

As they leapt from their ambulance, a cop pointed them to a young woman with long blond hair by a fence. She was alive but unconscious from a blow to the head.

They focused on her head injuries, and she was airlifted to a Fort Wayne hospital within 10 minutes of the paramedics' arrival.

Eib hadn't been much concerned with the woman's identity; he was trying to keep her alive. But now that the flight had left, it was time to work on some paperwork. Eib asked a deputy sheriff: Who is she?

The deputy said the woman's ID was with her — but Eib couldn't recall anyone attaching it to her.

Above in the chopper was Cerak. But no one would have known that by looking at her. The ID pinned to her shirt said she was VanRyn.

To deal with the crash and the victims now being rushed to its facility, Marion General Hospital set up a temporary morgue, and three school administrators raced to see what could be done.

At the morgue, emergency officials had lists of the living and the dead, based on information gathered at the crash site. As they were sorted, the dead included Felver, Erb, Smith, Larson and Cerak.

When someone at the hospital asked the school officials if they could match the names with the bodies, they did so. But as Taylor President Eugene Habecker would say later, they had no expertise with protocols for identifying the dead. And VanRyn's name was not on the list.

Two of the administrators were acquainted with VanRyn; the other didn't know her. So the body of VanRyn was identified as Cerak.

"At that time, Taylor University believed that this list of victims had already been confirmed," Habecker said.

At some point, Cerak's sister arrived at the hospital. But according to county Coroner Ron Mowery — who has taken full responsibility for the mistake — a deputy coroner told the relative no ID was necessary.

Neither she nor anyone else who knew Cerak well would see the body. And four days later, some 1,400 people would crowd her closed-casket funeral as Cerak's family buried her.

Don and Susie VanRyn had hurried to Fort Wayne as soon as they heard their daughter Laura had been taken there. Another daughter, Lisa, began a blog to update people about her comalike state.

Her condition improved, and on May 19, the VanRyns moved Laura to a rehabilitation center in Grand Rapids.

But a short time before she was moved, VanRyn's roommate, Sara Schupra, contacted university officials about her gnawing worries: The woman in the hospital, she told officials, did not look like her roommate.

Concerned, yet wary of creating a needless crisis, school administrators asked law officers for the accident records without revealing their motive. They never got a response.

As Laura VanRyn grew stronger in Grand Rapids, she still seemed confused.

Last Monday, a therapist asked the young woman her name. Unable to understand her response, she asked her to write it down. She wrote: "Whitney Cerak."

Two days later, dental records confirmed it.

The Ceraks rushed to Grand Rapids. When her father arrived, said Whitney Cerak's maternal grandfather, Emil Frank, "He just grabbed her and he just wept and wept and wept for joy."

Mowery, the coroner, said it was one of the first rescue workers at the crash who clipped VanRyn's ID to Cerak, but he hasn't identified the worker.