‘THIS IS NOT MY MOM’

N.J. Funeral Home Placed Wrong Body in Casket, $50M Lawsuit Claims

“The last memory of her was very painful and disturbing and horrible,” the dead woman’s daughter said.

A New Jersey family says they almost ended up burying a stranger after a funeral home mixed up two bodies with the same surname. In a lawsuit filed Monday, the Kim family is seeking a $50 million settlement from Central Funeral Home in Ridgefield, also naming as defendants Blackley Funeral Home and Cremation Services; funeral home director Haemin Gina Chong; and mortician Bongho Ha. “When she opened the casket, I told them this is not my mom,” said Kummi Kim in a Tuesday press conference. Her mother, Kyung Ja Kim, died in November, according to court documents. Rationalizing the difference in the corpse’s appearance as a byproduct of the embalming and makeup process, Kim attempted to put her doubts aside, the suit states. The alleged mistake was realized only as the casket was being lowered into the ground, according to the suit, which states the funeral director then “ran away” from the Kim family. “The last memory of her was very painful and disturbing and horrible,” Kim said of her mother at the conference.