Funeral Home Cremates The Wrong Woman, Then Slaps Her Wig On A Stranger And Pops The Casket

DETROIT — A grieving family showed up to say goodbye to mom and got a stranger in her dress, her wig, and her makeup.

That’s not a punchline. That’s Friday night at Hutchison Funeral Home on East 7 Mile.

Kimberly Kaye Moore, 61, died Sept. 3 after a fight with endometrial cancer. Her kids wanted one last look before Saturday’s funeral, then a cremation after everyone had seen her. What they got instead was a body-swap so sloppy it belongs in a horror movie, not a viewing room.

Daughter Bianca Robinson went early to put on her mother’s nails and lashes. A staffer unzipped the bag and, according to Robinson, actually asked: “Is this yo mom?”“And I’m looking like, you should know,” she told local TV.

Then she checked the toe. No mole. Not her mother.

“This is not my momma, sir,” she said.

The worker’s reply, as she remembers it: “I’m so sorry… Your mom must have been cremated when she first got here because it was two ladies that came in when your mom came. We must’ve cremated her.”How do you must’ve cremate somebody?

Relative Christopher Moore said the house floated a soggy-toe-tag theory, the tag got wet, fell off, and two women became one very expensive mix-up. Relatives say the woman in the box had mom’s dress, mom’s wig, mom’s makeup, the whole costume, wrong actress.

“They tried to show us another lady. They opened the casket. It’s not her,” one family member told FOX 2. “Where’s my momma?”Cops showed up. Doors got locked. The family stood outside yelling. The funeral home launched the classic corporate ritual: an “internal review,” a statement that they are “heartbroken and deeply sorry,” and a promise to “deal with it accordingly.” Spokesman Mario Morrow said if they’re at fault they’ll “make the family whole.” What “whole” looks like when the body is already ash is anybody’s guess.

Robinson’s line cuts through all of it: “We don’t have a viewing. What do you have? We don’t even have her ashes.”Two families are now in the wreckage, Moore’s, and whoever that other woman belongs to. One was dressed like somebody else’s mother. The other may already be dust.

A funeral home’s one job is to keep the dead from getting lost. This one lost the dead and dressed the wrong one for the party. Yikes doesn’t cover it.