Friends and family of Val Patterson learned Sunday that the man they thought held a doctorate from the University of Utah received the degree thanks to a paperwork mistake and that he never even graduated.
Patterson died from throat cancer on July 10. A local television station reports he wrote his own death notice in the first person last fall.
The light-hearted obituary published in the Salt Lake Tribune also includes a confession to stealing a business' safe. He wrote: "As it turns out, I AM the guy who stole the safe from the Motor View Drive Inn back in June, 1971."
His widow, Mary Jane, told a local television station that the confessions are true.
