(CN) — Talk about a grave mistake.
A Delaware family is claiming in court that a funeral home swapped their deceased family member’s corpse and intentionally portrayed the corpse as another man in an attempt to cover up the funeral home’s error.
“Bell Funeral Home’s actions of cremating the wrong body and then swapping one corpse for another to cover it up is reprehensible,” said Pat Gallagher, an attorney representing the family. “Their actions have caused tremendous additional stress and anxiety in their time of grief.”
Filed on Friday in the Superior Court of Delaware on behalf of family members Annette Walker-Henry, Renee Matthews and Natacha James, the complaint revolves around Samuel Roy — Walker-Henry and Matthews’ father and James’ grandfather — and an unrelated man, Roland Johnson Sr.
Roy died on Jan. 2, 2024. Shortly thereafter, his family arranged for Wilmington, Delaware, company Bell Funeral Home to cremate him and have his ashes given to the family for a Jan. 15, 2024 memorial, the complaint reads.
One week later, when Matthews contacted Bell Funeral Home to verify when Roy’s ashes would be made available, a representative of the company told her they could not be made available in time due to a paperwork issue, the complaint reads.
Later that month on Jan. 21, 2024, Johnson’s daughter, Darla Chase, visited the funeral home to inspect Johnson’s embalmed body prior to his memorial service, according to court documents.
Much to Chase’s surprise, the corpse in her father’s casket was not her father. However, when Chase relayed this to the funeral home, a representative from the company asserted that the man in the casket was, in fact, her father, the complaint reads.
Despite multiple other family members arriving to confirm Chase’s suspicions — and despite the corpse missing a tattoo Johnson had on his arm — representatives from the funeral home continued their attempts to convince the family that the corpse was of Johnson, the complaint reads.
Shortly afterward, a family member of Johnson made a Facebook post about the ordeal, which was quickly discovered by Roy’s family members, according to the complaint.
On Jan. 22, 2024, James called Beverly Bell, a member of the family owning Bell Funeral Home. During the phone call, Bell denied any error had occurred between Roy and Johnson’s bodies and asserted that Roy’s corpse had been moved to a separate funeral home for cremation, the complaint reads.
However, Bell’s daughter, Nakia Bell, later admitted that her mother “had made a mistake,” according to the complaint.
With their fears of a macabre mix-up unabated, Walker-Henry and Matthews underwent a DNA test comparing them to the corpse alleged to be Johnson.
The result? A 99.9999% probability that the body was their father, Samuel Roy, according to the complaint.
Upon further investigation, it was determined that Bell Funeral Home had placed Roy’s body in Johnson’s casket, even shaving off the beard on Roy’s corpse and producing programs for Johnson’s funeral with Roy’s face on them, according to the complaint.
The funeral home “cremated the wrong body — i.e., Mr. Johnson’s body — and then attempted to cover it up,” the complaint reads.
Walker-Henry, Matthews and James filed claims against Bell Funeral Home for mishandling and mistreatment of a corpse, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and interference with right to burial. They seek compensatory and punitive damages to be determined at trial.
A representative for Bell Funeral Home could not be reached in time for publication.