Heartbroken relatives were left horrified by a mix-up at the man’s funeral when his body couldn’t be located – and his aunt has described the moment she saw a stranger lying in the casket
A family has spoken of their heartbreak and horror after finding a stranger’s corpse inside their loved one’s casket – with the shock causing one relative to have a heart attack.
Joey Espinosa’s relatives had all gathered together at a funeral home for his service to say their final goodbyes. But Espinosa’s aunt Laura Levario said she realised something was terribly wrong when she saw a casket she didn’t remember choosing.
She then horrifyingly realised that the person inside the casket was not Joey. Laura told KSLA: “I noticed the body wasn’t my nephew’s and the coffin we picked out wasn’t [there].”
She then shared that the shocking incident actually caused her husband to have a heart attack due to the acute stress, and that he woke up three days later after going on life support.
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In the immediate aftermath, Laura said her family were taken to another room at the Forest Lawn Covina Hills funeral home in California, US, with yet another incorrect casket inside.
She claimed it took staff over an hour to direct them to the correct room where they could finally begin mourning. “They didn’t know where my nephew’s body was,” Laura said, describing the ordeal as the “worst experience we’ve ever had”.
Forest Lawn called the mistake a “scheduling error” and offered the grief-stricken family $200 (£150) as an apology, according to The Sun.
But that barely covered the costs of the funeral, which reached nearly $20,000 (£15,000). The Espinosa family is now reportedly suing the California mortuary for emotional distress and negligence.
Their attorney told CBS News: “Instead of mourning their loved one, they are searching for a body. When you’re spending that much money on a place like Forest Lawn, you would think they would do things properly.”
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It comes after two sisters paying their final respects to their mum before her funeral were shocked to find a stranger wearing her clothes lying in a coffin.
The grieving pair were initially told by funeral home workers that no mistake had been made, but staff went into the embalming room and found the body of their beloved mum Mary Archer.
Daughters Jennetta Archer and Jennifer Taylor said there was no resemblance between their mother and the woman who was in the casket.
Shocked Jennetta said: “There’s no similarity in the person. 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.”
It was only once their mother’s body was found to still be in the embalming room that workers at Hunter’s Funeral Home in Ahoskie, North Carolina admitted there was an issue.
The embalmer said the home had tried to reach out to the family to discuss the problem – but the sisters said they never received a call from the home.
The bodies were eventually switched and the service was able to go ahead as planned.