Nine grieving children discovered that a New York funeral home had sent their mother’s body to a family in Guatemala after stumbling upon a TikTok of the horrified recipients.
Carmen Maldonado died two days after her 96th birthday in May, and told her relatives that she wanted to be buried next to her husband in Ecuador.
Her family thought her body was still at the Rivera Funeral Home in Queens when they saw a Guatemalan news report of a young widow wondering why an elderly woman was in a casket supposedly containing the body of her 38-year-old husband.
Carmen’s family is now suing the funeral home after recovering the elderly woman’s body from the widow and taking it to the South American country another 2,400 kilometers to the south.
“They kept saying it was a ‘little mistake,'” his son Carlos Maldonado said. “They made us feel like changing or having the wrong bodies wasn’t important to them.”
Carmen Maldonado was a mother of nine children and grandmother of 30 in New York, whose last wish was to be buried next to her husband in her native Ecuador.
Her children were stunned to find a Guatemalan news report on TikTok revealing that her body had been given to an unrelated family 1,500 miles to the north.
Relatives of the family in Ecuador were hoping to receive the elderly woman’s body for viewing shortly after her death on May 18.
But eight days later his body arrived in Guatemala where widow Leonor Valencia was waiting for the same funeral home to send the body of her husband, Elder Emilio García, who had died suddenly while working as a waiter in New York.
Local television reporter Alcibiades Onofre spoke with the mother of two and posted his report on TikTok, where it was seen by Carmen’s children.
“The funeral home led them to believe that their mother’s body was still in the Queens building, and they were making excuses as to why there was a delay in transporting her to Ecuador,” Rizzuto said.
‘Although the TikTok indicated that the woman in Guatemala was Carmen Maldonado, it was difficult to believe because the funeral home gave them different information.
‘At the funeral home they told daughter Rosa that no, here we have your mother. And they denied it.
“But when they showed up the next day and showed them the video, the funeral home admitted they had made a mistake.”
Carmen’s youngest son, Manuel Minchala, 51, flew to Guatemala where he found little help from the authorities.
“They tried to bury my mom in Guatemala and I was begging the people there,” he said.
“I had to deal with the health department, the police, many, big processes to export the body to a different country.”
“I couldn’t believe this could be such a big mix-up,” said her sister Rosa Sicha. “I started crying and was incredibly upset.”
More than two weeks passed before the family was able to get his body out of Guatemala.
“They kept saying it was a ‘little mistake,'” his son Carlos Maldonado said. “They made us feel like changing or having the wrong bodies was not important to them”
Guatemalan widow Leonor Valencia was waiting for the same funeral home to send the body of her husband, Elder Emilio García, who had died suddenly while working as a waiter in New York.
The New York Department of Consumer and Worker Protection had sued the funeral home’s parent company, RG Ortiz, just a month earlier after discovering that 74 customers had filed complaints against it in the previous six years.
In August, the company agreed to pay $604,000 in restitution after admitting to presenting bodies in “unacceptable conditions,” refusing to inform grieving families about their relatives’ remains and misleading them about prices.
“Money will never heal the wounds caused by RG Ortiz’s conduct, but we are proud to hold this company accountable and ensure justice for our neighbors,” department Commissioner Vilda Vera Mayuga said in a statement.
It was not until June 10 that Carmen’s youngest son was able to take his mother’s body out of Guatemala and put it on a plane to his native Ecuador.
“The skin on the body’s hands was falling off, so they had to wrap them in Saran wrap,” Rizzuto told the NY Post.
“I can’t imagine how the family feels, or what they went through seeing that.”
Now the family has filed a lawsuit seeking unspecified damages for “great mental pain, severe anguish, mental anguish, nervous shock, and impairment of peace and happiness.”
‘Why did the funeral home lie to us?’ asked Manuel, 51 years old. ‘My mother was in Guatemala for 16 days.’
‘It was all about money. Not even an animal can make a mistake like this.