At Viewing, They Found a Stranger's Body in Mom's Clothes

Two daughters of a North Carolina woman who died last month say they walked up to her casket and found another woman's body dressed in their mother's clothes. While such mix-ups happen surprisingly often, per Newsweek, Jennifer Taylor and Jennetta Archer say the Sept. 7 viewing at Hunter's Funeral Home in Ahoskie was especially painful as employees initially claimed the woman in the casket—who was apparently swimming in Mary Archer's clothes—was indeed their mother, who died Aug. 31 at the age of 79. But "there's no similarity in the person. Their size was way off," Jennetta Archer tells WAVY.

"It would have been a different situation if they had just come up front and addressed it immediately," she adds. But the sisters say employees initially denied there was any issue and only admitted their mistake after finding their mother's body in the embalming room. The body was switched for the stranger's, allowing the service to go ahead as planned the following day. But "we just couldn't understand how this could happen," says Taylor. "It's just embarrassing." The funeral home's head embalmer tells WAVY that an apology was made for what was the first such mix-up in his 40-year career. He also claims to have tried to get in touch with the sisters later. Archer and Taylor say they never received the call. (More funeral home stories.)