Relatives bury wrong dead after funeral parlour mix-up

The body of an elderly Berbice man was returned to a funeral parlour refrigerator after spending close to a day in a tomb at the Crabwood Creek Cemetery. The man was erroneously buried on Monday by a family who mistook him for their dead relative.

The mistake occurred because of the uncanny resemblance of the two men, who reportedly died on the same day and were placed next to each other in the parlour’s refrigerator.

“Both ah dem old and had grey hair,” a source told Kaieteur News.
According to information received by this newspaper, the relatives of one of the men who flew into Guyana from the USA dressed one of the bodies without first ascertaining the real identity.
It turned out that it was not their relative.

“They put on suit and ting pon he and dey even cry up,” the source said.
The body was subsequently buried according to Christian rights.
Confusion came when a female employee of the funeral parlour noticed that the body which was scheduled for burial on Monday was still in the fridge. She quickly informed relatives of the man who was mistakenly buried.

Yesterday morning the man’s angry relatives, went to the burial ground and broke open the tomb, took out the well-dressed body and returned it to the fridge to await a proper cremation tomorrow.
Meanwhile, relatives of the other dead man took his body and placed it in the tomb.