BARNESVILLE, Ga. — A Barnesville woman says a Chicago funeral home buried the wrong body in her mother's grave.
Veronica Smith told Channel 2's Carl Willis she is still shaken by the incident and hasn't even had a chance to grieve properly. But she wanted to speak because she feels that she's being blamed for the funeral home's mix-up.
"It never occurred to me that they could make such a hideous mistake," Smith said.
The mistake: A Chicago funeral home prepared and buried the wrong body.
Willis met with Smith in her home in Barnesville. She said her mother's body was left in a prep room.
"I wanted to bury my mother in ... red, representing the blood of Jesus, but I didn't get to do that," Smith said.
Smith told Willis that she's a pastor and says she picked out her mother's clothes and casket and held a simple graveside ceremony, not knowing it was someone else's mother being lowered into the plot she selected in the cemetery.
"Here I am committing somebody's body and it wasn't my mother, then go back and do it again. That bothered me and it still does," Smith told Willis.
Smith says Leak and Sons Funeral Home called after the service to inform her of the error.
The body buried was actually Ella Mae Rutledge.
Rutledge's family, including daughter Monique Williams, had to have a service with no casket or body because of the mix-up.
"I said, 'Oh, no,'" Williams said.
Willis called to speak with a funeral director at Leak and Sons but he couldn't get through. They've suggested that a wrong ID on Smith's part was also to blame.
Smith explained that she thought nothing of the body's appearance because she hadn't seen her mother in months and had been told that she lost a lot of weight due to her illness.
Still, she says, the blame shouldn't be shifted to her.
"The mistake had already been made. They already had her in the casket with the clothing that I had already bought," Smith said.
Leak and Sons has accepted responsibility, saying the bodies were tagged incorrectly. The other family involved says it's considering legal action.
WSBTV
