Featured Image Credit: Local 12 WKRC
Topics: Los Angeles, US News
Joe Yates
A grieving Californian family has shared the horror of allegedly finding the wrong person in a casket meant for their loved one - and in his clothes as well.
Having arranged the funeral of her 80-year-old uncle, Amentha Hunt visited Harrison-Ross Mortuary, in Compton, Los Angeles, to view his body. But when she arrived to approve how her uncle looked in the coffin, she claims she was shown someone completely different.
Speaking to KCAL News, she said: “It was a guy laying there in my uncle’s suit, but it wasn’t my uncle. It shouldn’t have happened. I didn’t make arrangements there to see the wrong body.”
The grief-stricken Hunt then recalled the moment she flagged the mix-up to one of the workers.
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Explaining how the mortuary staffer replied, Hunt claimed: "She was like, ‘Oh, yes, that’s your uncle’, and I said, ‘That’s not my uncle. My uncle wouldn’t have gotten that dark'.
"I showed her a picture, and she said, ‘Yeah, you’re right. Give us one minute'."
Having been forced to wait three hours while the funeral home allegedly located their uncle, took the other corpse out of his clothes, and groomed their loved one, Hunt and her family decided to contact a lawyer to file a lawsuit against Harrison-Ross Mortuary.
“For them to come in and see the wrong corpse and for the mortuary to deny that it’s the wrong corpse and then need proof that it’s in fact the right person,” attorney Elvis Tran explained to the station.
"We think it’s just a basic standard of care that they messed up on and that they really need to improve their ways, so they don’t do this to another family."
Hunt is not aware who the mortuary had dressed up in her uncle's clothes, although she explained to the outlet that the ordeal has left her traumatized.
"It’s hurt. I still think about it. That’s something that’s never going to go away, to view the wrong corpse. I still can see that guy,” Hunt added.
She is understood to have picked out her uncle's suit alongside her aunt, and was horrified to see another corpse wearing it.
UNILAD has contacted Harrison-Ross Mortuary for comment.
Just last month, cops in south Houston, Texas, responded to a customer being stabbed in a funeral home by one of its workers after they complained that the business was improperly storing corpses.
If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact GrieveWell on (734) 975-0238, or email [email protected].