Pet store expects fish shipment, but gets corpse

Employees of a Pennsylvania pet store expecting a shipment of tropical fish and salt water got a man's dead body instead. Mark Arabia owns the Pets Plus store in northeast Philadelphia, where the mix-up was discovered Tuesday. He says he learned the body was that of a 65-year-old San Diego area man who died of early onset Alzheimer's disease.

The body was supposed to go to a research laboratory in Allentown, a 70-mile drive away.

US Airways Inc. released a statement saying the air cargo problem was caused by a "verbal miss-communication between a delivery driver and the cargo representative." The Tempe, Arizona based airline said it's deeply sorry.

The fish were shipped in three boxes. The corpse was shipped in a wooden coffin wrapped in cardboard.

Arabia said the fish were left at the airport and probably died.