SACRAMENTO COUNTY — A Sacramento County hospital is accused of misplacing a woman’s body. The woman’s mother told CBS13 she had no idea her daughter had died for a year.
Jessie Peterson was admitted to Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael in April 2023. According to her mother, Ginger Congi, it wasn’t uncommon for her daughter to receive medical treatment for type 1 diabetes. She was diagnosed when she was a teenager, Congi said, and while it was difficult, Peterson “just kept going.”
“She loved to run. She loved sports. She loved to dance. She played guitar,” Congi said.
Last April, Peterson called her mother to ask for a ride to the hospital. Congi told her her daughter wanted to leave. Congi told her she was in the safest place, admitted for treatment after a diabetic episode. It would be the last time the two would speak.
The date of their call was April 8, 2023, according to the family’s lawsuit filed in Sacramento County against Mercy San Juan Medical Center and Dignity Health.
Congi said she tried to contact Peterson’s room three days later and was told that Peterson had been released against medical advice. The truth, Congi said a year later, is that her daughter died two hours after their phone call in April 2023.
“We didn’t give up hope. At that point, we thought maybe she had been quiet for a while. Then, you know, she would resurface,” Congi said.
The family went looking for Peterson and officially reported him missing, posting fliers with his photo and contact information for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.
“I had members go out into the area and pass out pictures, contact local security to see if they might have seen her. So the search was extensive. I even searched along the Sacramento levees, you know, riding my bike to see if I might be able to pass by. I even searched some places when I was driving to work,” Congi said.
Answers came on April 12, 2024, when a sheriff’s office detective contacted Peterson’s family to tell them she had been found dead at Mercy San Juan Hospital.
“At this point, Jessie’s body was so decomposed that an open-casket burial was not feasible, and Jessie’s fingerprints were not even available for any memorial,” as one line in the family’s complaint describes it.
Peterson’s body was transferred to an off-site cold storage facility, the lawsuit said.
“They just abandoned her. Just 24 hours after she died, they sent her to a storage facility and into a freezer on a shelf, you know, and they didn’t care about her or us at all,” Congi said.
In a statement to CBS13, a spokesperson for Dignity Health said they could not comment due to ongoing litigation.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the family during this difficult time. We are unable to comment on pending litigation.”
Congi said she wanted accountability and would take legal action to prevent this from happening to other families.
The family alleges negligent infliction of emotional distress, neglect and negligent handling of a corpse as causes of action in the lawsuit for a total of $5 million in actual and statutory damages.
Madisen Keavy
