SACRAMENTO COUNTY — A Sacramento County hospital is accused of losing 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. Her mother, Ginger Congi, said it wasn’t unusual 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 running. She loved sports. She loved dancing. She played guitar,” Congi said.
Last April, Peterson called her mother to ask if she could be picked up from the hospital. Congi said her daughter wanted to leave. Congi told her she was in the safest place, admitted for treatment after an episode of diabetes. That would be the last time the two spoke.
The day of their call was April 8, 2023, according to the lawsuit the family 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 Peterson had been discharged against medical advice. The truth, Congi said she learned a year later, is that her daughter died two hours after their call in April 2023.
“We didn’t lose hope. At that point we thought, you know, maybe she just, she just went quiet for a little while. Then, you know, she’d pop back up,” Congi said.
The family searched for Peterson and officially reported her missing, posting flyers with her photo and contact information for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.
“Members went out into the area and passed out pictures, contacted local security to see if they had seen her. So the search was extensive. I even looked along the levees in Sacramento, you know, got on my bike and saw if I could get past there. I even looked at places as I was driving to work,” Congi said.
The answers came on April 12, 2024, when a sheriff’s office detective contacted Peterson’s family and told them she had been found dead at Mercy San Juan Hospital.
“At that point, Jessie’s body had decomposed to the point that an open-casket funeral was no longer feasible and Jessie’s fingerprints were no longer even available as a keepsake,” the family’s lawsuit states.
According to the criminal complaint, Peterson’s body was moved to a cold storage facility off-site.
“They just completely threw her away. Not even 24 hours after she died, they took her to a storage facility and put her in a freezer on a shelf, you know, and they just 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 the ongoing litigation.
“We extend our deepest condolences to the family during this difficult time. We cannot comment on pending litigation.”
Congi said she wants accountability and is taking legal action to prevent this situation from happening to other families.
The family alleges negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence and negligent treatment of a corpse, which is the basis for the lawsuit, which seeks a total of $5 million in actual and statutory damages.
Madisen Keavy
