I have no doubt there are plenty of parents out there guilty of replacing a dead goldfish or hamster with a lookalike before their kids realize, but replacing the corpse of an entire uncle is a whole new level.
When Otis Adkinson died, his family took him to the Harrison-Ross Mortuary to be prepared for burial. They brought a suit for him to be laid to rest in and left the preparation down to the funeral home.
However, when Amentha Hunt looked into the coffin of her uncle, she realized that a complete stranger was wearing the suit she had picked out. They had dressed the wrong corpse and brought it to the viewing. The family were horrified by the random body they saw before them, wearing their uncle’s suit.
When the family told the staff that the wrong corpse had been brought to the viewing, they doubled down. Instead, they insisted it was the right one. But the family wasn’t fooled. They showed pictures and eventually got their way. Now, they’re suing.
Uninvited Guest At The Family Funeral
Speaking to KCAL News, Hunt said, “It was a guy lying there in my uncle’s suit. But, it wasn’t my uncle. I just kept looking at him. … I was like, wait a minute, he couldn’t have gotten that dark.” When she voiced her concerns to her family, they agreed. It was not their uncle, it was someone else completely.
She had to show living pictures to the staff for them to admit their mistake, rather than taking their initial claim seriously. It then took them several hours to get their uncle’s body and dress him. By the time they got back, the viewing was more or less over.
The lawsuit states “The mystery and horrific facts surrounding the treatment of [Otis] has caused and continue to cause the pair immense mental suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, inconvenience, grief, anxiety, humiliation and emotional distress.”
Their attorney, representing the case, has made a statement about the corpse mix up. “For them to come in and see the wrong corpse, and for the mortuary to deny that it’s the wrong corpse. We think it’s really just a basic standard of care that they messed up on.”