Family Of San Fernando Woman Files Suit Against Funeral Home Alleging Burial Mix-Up

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The family of a San Fernando woman has filed suit alleging a cemetery buried their loved one in the wrong grave.

Jose Barajas has been waiting to place a cross he built on his wife's grave nearly two months after her death.

The great-grandfather from San Fernando is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, and his family says every day he asks the same painful question: When are we gonna have her funeral?

But his family says they still have no answer after they say there was a shocking mix-up at an East Los Angeles funeral home.

According to the lawsuit the family filed, the night before the scheduled viewing for Maria-Mercedes Solorio, 89, Funeraria Latino Americana admitted it mistakenly switched her body with another woman.

Family members say they were devastated to find out Solorio had allegedly been buried several days earlier in the wrong grave and at the wrong cemetery.

"For them to do that, it's pretty hard to accept," Rocio Barajas, the plaintiff, said.

CBS2 tried to get answers from the funeral home, but it declined a request for an interview. An employee said someone would email a statement, which has yet to be received.

"What they did to us was wrong, and they should have been transparent from the start," Barajas said.

It's unclear how the alleged body-switch happened, but Solorio's family says it now needs a court order to recover her remains.

Until she receives a proper burial, her family says, her husband of more than seven decades will continue to wait with the cross that is his final gift.

"No family should go through that without even paying their respects. It's just not right," she said.

A judge has ordered that Solorio's remains be recovered from the wrong grave and returned to her family. They hope to finally have a service for her next week.