Norma Newman‘s family got quite the shock when they gathered Saturday to pay their respects to the late matriarch.
The problem is Newman’s body wasn’t the one lying in the casket at the Roy Mizell & Kurtz Funeral Home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Someone else’s was.
Norma Newman’s family say they still don’t know where her body is after the wrong body was displayed at her wake. (Images courtesy of WSVN)
“I went up to view her body. No, this is not my sister,” Newman’s sister Cuinthia Webber told WSVN-TV. “This is somebody we did not know. We did not know the person that was lying in the casket.”
Outraged relatives said they knew something was wrong when they noticed the body was missing their loved’s one’s trademark feature: a large forehead mole.
“We asked them about the mole on our aunt’s face,” said Suzette Walsh, Newman’s niece. “They said that they covered it up with makeup. There was no mole there. And makeup couldn’t cover it because it was like, kind of protruding out of her face.”
Family members were sure there’d been some sort of mix-up, as the body in the casket in no way resembled their loved one. Funeral home employees later acknowledged something was wrong but said they are “still investigating” the matter.
“At this point, we don’t know where my aunt’s body is. We don’t know,” Newman’s niece Marcia Durrant Aris told the station, fighting back tears. “We came here to mourn the loss of my aunt, and this is what we get and nobody is taking ownership. We don’t know. Many questions — unanswered questions. That’s not right.”
In a disturbing twist, Miami station 7News reports that another family who had the funeral of a loved one earlier this month believes the body they buried on March 2 may have been Newman’s. Members of that family confronted the funeral home over the issue but got no answers.
On Monday, Newman’s family said the funeral home has yet to provide them with any answers either.
“It’s very hard,” granddaughter Camisha Stewart said. “We all need closure from it.”
Watch more in the video below.