Kong Channeang appeared safe and sound at his own wake

Jun 4, 2014 07:07 GMT  ·  By
Missing man frightens off family and friends when he shows up at his own cremation ceremony
   Missing man frightens off family and friends when he shows up at his own cremation ceremony

Family and friends of a missing man who was thought to have died were frightened when he showed up safe and sound at his own funeral this week. The incident happened in Cambodia on Sunday evening, when relatives and acquaintances of Kong Channeang were saying their final farewell.

Mr. Channeang showed up just as his cremation was about to start, causing the mourners to flee in terror. Given that the man made his startling appearance during twilight, I assume the semidarkness contributed to the eerie atmosphere and his loved ones probably believed they were seeing his ghost.

The 32-year-old man, who suffers from a mental illness, had gone missing five days earlier from his home in the Romdoul district of Svay Rieng Province. When a decomposing body was found in a nearby river, it was mistakenly identified as Channeang, and his family, unaware of the blunder, accepted that the dead man was their son and started preparations for the funeral.

However, the “deceased” turned up alive and well, shocking all those who had gathered at his cremation ceremony.

“All of us were scared and ran away immediately,” Orn Song, the chief of Svay Chek commune, told the Phnom Penh Post. “We thought that we were being haunted, since it was a little bit dark at 6:30pm when he showed up at the funeral.”

Channeang's father, Kong Vanny, was the only one who didn’t run away when he saw him because he realized he wasn't a ghost.

“When I heard him call me, I just went to him and grabbed his hand. I realized that he was not a ghost and I told the villagers and authorities to return to the funeral and to not be afraid of him because he was actually alive,” the 63-year-old man said.

The unidentified corpse that was about to be cremated was handed over to the authorities, who buried it at a local pagoda.

According to Channeang's father, the man worked as an industrious builder before he started to show signs of mental illness. But now, he is sometimes aggressive and leaves the house for long periods of time, that's why his family ties him up at night, a controversial but common practice in Cambodia. He reportedly managed to free himself from the chains on the night he disappeared.

“His condition is like a spirit comes and controls his body. Sometimes he is normal, and sometimes he is not normal and he has problems with other people,” Mr. Vanny added.