A Texas funeral home is under fire for mixing up the bodies for a funeral and burying the wrong woman in the wrong place.
More interestingly, the funeral home claims that the family of the misidentified woman bears at least part of the blame.
Mabrie Memorial Mortuary says Bruce Lawson had identified the wrong body as his own mother, but Lawson takes issue with that claim.
“It’s like we didn’t say anything, we didn’t do anything. We didn’t have any concerns, but that’s just simply not true,” says Lawson. “I said is it possible maybe there’s another body here, that it’s the wrong body and she said we don’t make those kind of mistakes.” He says his questions were shot down and that he was assured that sometimes the face can change during embalming.
A spokesman for the Texas Funeral Service Commission says Lawson’s concerns were taken into account but that ultimately the family decided to move forward with the burial. The commission did find Mabrie Memorial negligent for failing to check ID tags, though Lawson and his family are suing for gross negligence. A warning letter will go on the funeral home’s record.
Mabrie Memorial has made several changes since the incident, including requiring families to sign forms to confirm the identity of the body and adding a second ID that the director must check.
The body switch was discovered, and Lawson’s mother is buried in her rightful place now.