Family Nearly Buries The Wrong Woman Placed In Their Mother's Casket, Sues Funeral Home

Leonia, New Jersey -- A devastated family in New Jersey is suing a funeral home for nearly burying the wrong person instead of their 93-year-old mother.

The family filed a lawsuit Monday for $50 million and blamed the mix-up on the Central Funeral Home of New Jersey and Blackley Funeral Home and Cremation Services Inc. The two Ridgefield funeral homes operate out of the same facility.

Friends and relatives had traveled from afar to attend the funeral of Kyung Ja Kim in Leonia on Nov. 13, 2021, USA TODAY reported. The deceased woman’s daughter, Kummi Kim felt something was off the moment she looked into the open casket. She even expressed her doubt to the funeral home director, Haemin Gina Chong, before the burial.

"When she opened the casket, I told them this is not my mom. And she didn't say any word about it,” Kummi Kim said during a press conference Tuesday, according to the outlet.

The funeral director responded to Kummi Kim’s concern with “a very clear expression of denial and dismay,” NBC News reported.

Kummi Kim thought the embalming process, the mortuary makeup and fake hair, and “some type of filler such as Botox” may have contributed to her mother’s “altered appearance,” the lawsuit added.

As the casket was being lowered into the grave, Chong showed Kummi Kim a photo of a woman and asked if it was her mother. Kummi Kim replied yes, prompting Chong to give orders to have the casket lifted out of the grave.

Chong also started ushering the funeral-goers away from the site and had the body sent back to the funeral home.

The Kim family later found out that the woman in the casket was another woman, about 20 years younger than Kyung Ja Kim, with the same last name.

The family had given the funeral home traditional Korean clothes as well as Kyung Ja Kim's dentures for the burial. However, the funeral home had dressed the wrong body in the clothes meant for their mother and had shoved the dentures underneath the pillow of the wrong corpse, which had a full set of teeth, according to the family’s attorney, Michael Maggiano.

"I feel very sad and angry that we couldn't accomplish her final wish, that she wanted to say bye to us at the church," Kummi Kim told NBC New York.

The funeral home offered a refund for the funeral services.

If they win the lawsuit, the family said they will donate the money to two of the churches Kyung Ja Kim cared about when she was alive.