Police told Winnipeg family their loved one was killed — but he showed up alive 8 days later

A Winnipeg family is still reeling after they were told their loved one was the victim of a homicide — only to have him show up alive eight days later. 

Judy Panchenko and her long-time partner Cheryl Cook were sitting at home when Winnipeg police officers came to their door and said their grandson, Peter Panchenko, was dead. 

"We asked 'Is this about Peter?' and then [the officer] said 'He's been killed. He's dead,'" Cook said. "In the space of a few minutes we realized that Peter is not just dead but he's been murdered. He was stabbed, murdered, set on fire."

Police told Judy that Peter's body was found on April 27 by emergency crews called to deal with a fire in the area of MacDonald Avenue and Gomez Street in Point Douglas.

But officers didn't arrive at their house until May 18. 

"The first thing is you're in shock," Judy said. "I said it's not Peter. As soon as they told me where it was, I said that is not Peter. Peter will never go downtown."

Family told their loved one was killed — but he showed up alive 8 days later

1 year ago

Duration 3:31

A Winnipeg family is still reeling after they were told their loved one was the victim of a homicide — only to have him show up alive eight days later.

Judy said she and Cook they told police they had Facebook messages from her 35-year-old grandson that were sent on May 8 — more than a week after the incident had occurred. They again told police it could not be Peter. 

But the two said police were adamant and said the medical examiner had used dental records to confirm his identity. 

They said they were told to contact Peter's father to get a DNA sample to use as a secondary confirmation, which would take four to six weeks, but that police were certain it was their grandson.

"We said are you sure this is him. They said 99.9 per cent," Cook said. 

'I'm not dead' 

Over the course of the next week, they started calling family and friends to let them know what happened.

"I went to his Facebook and posted on there and less than 10 minutes after posting … his friends were saying sorry for your loss," Peter's dad Shane Munroe said. 

Sympathy cards started to pour in and the family began planning his funeral and picking out an urn. 

But eight days after police told them Peter had been murdered, an alert on Munroe's cellphone from his door bell camera went off. 

"I'm looking at the door [camera] and there's Peter. He says 'I'm not dead,'" Munroe said. 

"I was happy," he said. "He's not dead. I'm mad because it took him a week [to tell us] but happy he's there and he's living."

Munroe said Peter doesn't have a cellphone and has limited online access, so he wasn't aware people thought he was dead. He had been living in a tent on the street and struggling with addiction.

Still, the family was left questioning how the medical examiner's officer got the identification so wrong. 

Misidentification 'extremely rare'

At the time of the death, police put out a public plea to help identify the person as the body was badly burned. They said the person was missing his upper teeth and would have undergone a previous medical facial procedure. 

Peter's family was told the medical examiner used dental records to identify him.

The family said Peter had been attacked in late February and was hit in the side of the face with a hammer. It caused severe damage and he had to have surgery. 

"He had his teeth all broken so he had a plate," Judy said. 

After Peter showed up alive, they called police and the medical examiner's office to notify them. 

"I was so mad. It's your family. It's your child. That was terrible," Judy said. 

Family calls for changes

The couple said while police apologized for the error, they didn't get the same courtesy from the medical examiner who made the misidentification.

"I said to her 'Do you have any idea what you put this family through?' and she basically said, 'Well look at the outcome. It turned out okay,'" Cook said.

They are demanding changes at the medical examiner's office to ensure it doesn't happen again. 

"I would like to see accountability of that office, whether they send a letter or a public apology. I don't need a lame excuse," Cook said. "I want to know what truly happened, how you came to the process of identifying Peter and what measures can go into place so it never happens to another family again."

The director of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner declined CBC's interview request and would not provide any further information on how the mistake happened.

They did confirm the identification "was initially done by dental comparison as per routine protocol."

"This situation is extremely rare, if not unprecedented," Kathryn Braun, director of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, said in an email. "We are looking into this further so that it may never happen again… there will be no further comment at this time due to the ongoing criminal investigation."

Verifying identity

In most cases, an identification is done visually, but additional steps may be taken to confirm the person's identity, according to the Dirk Huyer, chief coroner for the province of Ontario.

Huyer said coroner will use fingerprints, dental records, DNA and also look for notable surgeries and implants such a hip replacement or pacemaker, which can help identify a person. 

"We look at ensuring we take all steps possible to give the best answer that we can. So we have a high standard of evaluating and determining identification because it's very significant. The outcome is very significant for many," he said.

Huyer has no knowledge of Peter Panchenko's case specifically, but he said the fact Peter had recently had surgery and had a plate in his face would have been a notable marking. 

"The fact that there's the plate would be a notable piece of information [in the] evaluation," he said. "If there was a plate, it may not have a [serial] number on, but we certainly look for it… it might be difficult to find a serial number, but that's an example of something that we would look for."

Police declined an interview request and said they cannot comment on an ongoing criminal investigation.

However, director of public affairs Kelly Dehn told CBC that police took the family's concerns seriously.

Officers tried to contact Panchencko over social media in an attempt to decipher where the messages were coming from and whether the account had been hacked, he said.

Officers were also told to be on the lookout for the 35-year-old, Dehn said.

Police do believe they now know who the victim is.

The homicide unit has established the identity of a victim but are working with the family to confirm, police said. 

A 23-year-old man is charged with second-degree murder. Tyrus Mann was already in custody to face charges related to two stabbings in Winnipeg when police charged him in early May.