Bianca Robinson walked into Hutchinson Funeral Home last Friday ready to do her mother’s nails and lashes one final time, only to be met with a question that stopped her cold.
A mortuary worker looked at the body in the casket and asked, “Is this yo Mom?” Robinson, whose mother Kimberly Moore had died at 61, stared back in disbelief. “And I’m looking like, ‘you should know,'” she later recounted of the staffer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QalB7FuWy90
What unfolded inside the Detroit funeral home has left a family shattered and searching for answers they fear may never come. Robinson took one look at the woman laid out in her mother’s dress and wig and knew instantly. “This is not my momma sir,” she told the worker during the viewing, held just one day before Moore was scheduled to be laid to rest Saturday.
Another relative, speaking to FOX 2, put it in starker terms. “The woman got on my momma’s dress, wig, everything,” the family member said. “That’s not my momma in the casket.” They tried to show us another lady. They opened the casket, it’s not her,” the devastated relative added.
The explanation Robinson said she received only deepened the horror. According to the daughter, the mortuary employee allegedly told her, “I’m so sorry…your mom must have been cremated when she first got here because it was two ladies that was here that came in when your mom came.” She recalled the staffer saying bluntly, “We must’ve cremated her.”
Relative Christopher Moore offered another detail from the funeral home’s account, claiming staff “said they think the toe tag got wet and fell off and that’s how her body got mixed up with somebody else’s body.”
The family had planned for Moore to be cremated after Saturday’s funeral so everyone could see her one last time. That chance was stolen from them, Robinson made clear in her anguish. “How do you make a mistake like that?” she asked the funeral staff. “We don’t have a viewing. What do we have? We don’t even have her ashes! Somebody please tell us something.”
Hutchinson Funeral Home issued a statement to FOX 2 expressing remorse while promising action. “We are heartbroken and deeply sorry for what Ms. Moore’s family has experienced. We are aware of the family’s concerns and we will continue to communicate with them honestly and respectfully,” the funeral home said. “We have launched our own internal review to determine exactly what happened and we will deal with it accordingly. Out of respect for Ms. Moore and her family, we ask that their privacy be honored during this time. We will share more when we can.”
The incident has drawn scrutiny to the funeral home’s handling of remains, with the family now left to grieve without the closure of a proper farewell. The outlet reached out to Hutchinson Funeral Home but did not immediately receive a response for comment.
