(NEW YORK POST) – Two grieving sisters from North Carolina opened their mother’s casket and found someone they didn’t recognize dressed in their mom’s clothing.
The pair stumbled onto the morbid mistake on the day of their mother Mary Archer’s viewing at Hunter’s Funeral Home in Ahoskie on Sept. 7, WAVY reported.
“There’s no similarity in the person,” Jennetta Archer told the station. “Their size was way off — when the first person had the clothing on, she was swimming in the clothing because she was so small compared to my mother.”
When Jennetta and sister, Jennifer Taylor, told workers at funeral home, they tried to assure them the person was their mother, the sisters claimed.
It was only once their mother’s body was found to still be in the embalming room that they admitted the mess-up and made a switch so the showing could go on as planned.
A lead embalmer at the funeral home confirmed the mistake to WAVY, but didn’t appear on camera for an interview. The embalmer said the home had tried to reach out to the family to discuss the problem, but the sisters said they haven’t received a call from the home.
The family at least avoided the fate of other mourning families, who’ve experienced instances of medical examiners cremating the wrong corpse — or dealt with allegations that the wrong person was put in a casket only to be buried in a family member’s plot.
