Woman claims Decatur mortuary put wrong body in casket

Wrong body placed in casket for funeral

A horrible mix up led to the wrong body being placed in a casket. The family has now filed a lawsuit against the DeKalb County mortuary that handled the arrangements.

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. - A Maryland woman is suing a Decatur mortuary after she claims that the business put the wrong body in the casket during her grandmother's funeral.

Marva Lynch filed the lawsuit against Donald Trimble Mortuary in DeKalb County State Court on May 1.

A generic photo of a funeral. (Carolyn Booth via Pixabay)

What we know:

In the filing obtained by FOX 5, Lynch and her attorney accused the mortuary of negligence, mishandling human remains, and breach of conduct.

According to the lawsuit, Lynch hired the mortuary after her grandmother, Lucy Johnson, died in 2023. She reportedly paid nearly $9,000 for funeral preparations.

She says that she gave the business a wig and clothes for her grandmother to be buried in and requested a closed-casket funeral service - only briefly viewing the body in the casket and seeing the items provided.

The lawsuit claims that the mortuary "dressed the wrong body in the wig and clothes" and later admitted to Lynch that they realized the body in the casket was not Johnson's.

Lynch claims in her lawsuit that the mortuary has been "stubborn and unresponsive" to settling the issue and says she suffered "mental and emotional distress."

She's now asking for the funeral costs to be repaid on top of punitive damages and court costs.

What they're saying:

Lucy Johnson was 95 when she passed away.  Her granddaughter, Marva Lynch, paid Donald Trimble Mortuary in Decatur to handle her final arrangements. "She provided them with a wig and clothing for her grandmother to be buried in," said Attorney Jonathan Johnson who is representing Lynch. 

When it came time for the viewing, Attorney Johnson says his client was emotional and didn't look closely at the woman lying in the casket. "She briefly glanced at the casket, didn't look closely, her grandmothers wig and clothing were visible and she assumed it was the right body," said Johnson. 

Friends attended Johnson’s homegoing service on Aug. 1, 2023. "They're all sitting there, the clergyman is talking about her life, they're paying their respects t her but she isn't there," said Johnson.

Johnson says sometime between the service and the burial, Lynch was told the woman in the casket with the familiar wig and clothing, was not her grandmother. "To their credit the funeral home admitted this. They pulled her aside and said we need to take the corpse back and swap the bodies before we actually put the body in the ground because we have the wrong body," said Johnson. 

Jonathan Johnson says his client, Ms. Lynch, wants to be compensated for the shock and emotional distress of not being able to give her grandmother a proper farewell, and she wants to make sure others don't have to go through this. "People expect to be at their own funeral, and their loved ones expect them to be there. She just feels like her grandmother never got the respect she was due," said Johnson.

The other side:

Attorney Forrest Johnson is representing the mortuary.  He released the following statement:

"We are aware of the allegations of the complaint. Our client's take pride in the delivery of professional services to loved ones in their time of need.  Our thoughts go out to the family".