Texas Funeral Home Accidentally Put the Wrong Body in a Casket
I know, mistakes happen. However, I couldn't imagine what I would do in this situation.
Over in Houston, Texas, the family of Natividad Torres Cordova were going to attend his funeral at Santana Funeral Directors. Mr. Cordova sadly passed away from pancreatic cancer, but the family were able to say their goodbyes before he passed. The day of the funeral the family was a little upset that the casket was late, but they didn't let it ruin their day.
That is until they opened the casket. Maria Vasquez went to say her final goodbyes, but then she noticed this was not the right person. “I went up to the casket to tell him, ‘I love you,’ before anybody came in, and (I) was touching the wrong person, with [my] dad’s clothes,” she said in tears. “They ruined everything.”
Photos taken at the funeral show a man who is not Cordova wearing his special Mexico soccer jersey. “It almost felt like a really mean joke,” Natividad Cordova Junior said. “I don’t even like to talk about it.” The family went to confront Santana Funeral Directors to figure out how this could have happened.
Close to two hours later, the body of Natividad Torres Cordova arrived, but the family said his body was not prepared for a service. KPRC 2 in Houston reached out to the funeral home for a statement. “Once and a while, there might be an issue with a family but we’re not at liberty to discuss that,” funeral director Arnold Alanis added. “I feel sorry for them, they’re in grief right now with loss of a loved one. We strive real hard to make sure the family’s needs are met."
Vasquez said Alanis refunded the family later, but she said she had hoped that he and other employees would have shown some remorse on the day of the funeral. The family says they plan on filing a lawsuit against the funeral home.