Family Sues California Mortuary Over Switched Bodies

A family is suing a mortuary over a body switch that resulted in a grandmother being buried in another woman’s clothes in a California cemetery instead of an above-ground crypt in Nicaragua.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday by the 88-year-old woman’s family seeks unspecified damages.

Mercedes Adilia Rodriguez died in 2010. The grandmother of 11 wanted a closed casket funeral and a final resting spot above-ground in Nicaragua rather than the chilly earth of a cemetery.

But Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier told the family they confused her with someone else.

The Los Angeles Times reports Rodriguez was put in an open casket wearing another woman’s clothes and she was buried in the Whittier cemetery. She was exhumed days later and sent to Nicaragua.