Body of Rev. Moon's son to be taken to Korea
Reno Gazette-Journal, Nov 10, 1999
By Susan Voyles
The remains of the youngest son of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon will be exhumed from a Reno cemetery and taken to South Korea for services and reburial.
The Washoe County coroner's office said Young Jin Moon, 21, fell to his death Oct. 28 from the 17th floor of Harrah's hotel. The Washoe County Coroner's Office has ruled his death suicide.
County commissioners approved the exhumation at the request of Assemblyman Dave Humke, R-Reno, made on behalf of Moon's family. A 1911 state law requires the commission's approval as well as health authority approval for the disinterment because of the potential for spreading disease.
Thousands of Unification Church members, sometimes called Moonies, are expected for the religious event in Korea. Church followers still need Washoe District Health Department approval before the body can be taken from the grave at Sierra Memorial Gardens in Reno.
Jin Moon was in Reno visiting the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno.He was considering whether to study hotel management here or at home in Las Vegas, where he would have attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, according to church officials.
Moon's death came as a surprise to the family, Rev. Phillip Schanker, a church official, said last week. Moon had married two years ago and would have been a junior in college.
His body was found on the top of Harrah's skywalk over Center Street. He was buried three days later, according to church tradition and rules, Tyler Hendricks, another church official in New York City, wrote in a letter to commission chairman Jim Galloway.
"Our leaders who dealt with the matter followed that rule," Hendricks said in his letter. "It seems that since Rev. Moon gave no other indication of what to do, they chose to inter the deceased locally."
Young Jin Moon was the sixth son of Sun Myung Moon, now 79, who lost two other sons in accidents, one in a car accident and another in a train wreck.
Young Jin Moon was not heavily involved in the church and didn't give speeches or stand on stage. His wedding in November 1997, according to a church newsletter, "set the stage for the blessing of 3.6 million couples worldwide." He was born in the United States.
