PORTLAND - Nearly three months later, officials with the Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office admitted Monday that "a mistake was made" when a Portland man's body was sold to Oregon Health & Science University Hospital before his family was notified of his death.

KGW Photo

RJ Anheier talks to KGW in a past interview.

“A mistake was made that might have made a difference," said Dr. Karen Gunsen, a pathologist with the medical examiner's office.

She confirmed that R.J. Anheier had identification on him at the time he was found collapsed on a sidewalk on January 4th. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Officials with the medical examiner's office said they tried to reach next of kin, but the person contacted with the same last name was not a relative.

Although his I.D. card contained his address, no one was sent there to inquire about him.

"While this is not an excuse, the work force was so low that they didn’t have anyone to send out there,” Gunsen said.

Since Anheier’s body went unclaimed, it was offered to Oregon Health and Science University as required under Oregon law. OHSU paid $37.50 for Anheier’s body.

Law allows Ore. hospitals to buy unidentified bodies

"This is something that never should have happened. How could this have happened?" said Diane Anheier, R.J. Anheier's sister.

She said he not only carried I.D. in the form of a social security card, he even carried his birth certificate with him at all times because if "something happened to him, he wanted people to know who he was."

Anheier had been homeless at one time but lived at the Biltmore Hotel, a low-income housing unit in Old Town, for about the last 10 years, according to his sister. He worked at the Sisters of the Road Café in exchange for meals.

Tip Daniels, who lived next door to Anheier, said when his friend disappeared in January, people in the building began to wonder what happened.

“First we thought he went to see his sister in Florida,” Daniels said. “That wasn’t the case.”

Friends found out weeks later that Anheier had collapsed just blocks from his home. They said he had had emergency contacts on his lease at the Biltmore Hotel.

“They more than dropped the ball,” Daniels said. “They insulted his existence and his family.”

Anheier's sister found out about his death just last week.

"He was sent to the university for a whole body donation and he's been up there all this time... it shouldn't have happened. He was a person. Just because he collapsed on the street and he may have looked like he was a bum, he had a home, he had a life," she said.

Diane Anheier paid for her brother's body to be returned and cremated and planned to give him a proper burial. A memorial was set for Monday at the Biltmore Hotel.

(KGW reporter Jane Smith contributed to this article.)