‘This is not her’: Family says wrong body buried after funeral home mix-up

FAIR BLUFF, N.C. (WECT/Gray News) - The family of a North Carolina woman says they attended a loved one’s funeral over the weekend, but her body was not the one in the casket.

Vivian Fairley died on May 30 and Steller Williams died the following day. Their funerals were scheduled one day apart in Fair Bluff, both by S & L Funeral Home.

However, according to Fairley’s family, Williams’ body ended up in her casket and vice versa.

“We were looking at her and we’re saying ‘this is not her,’ and he told us like we don’t know our own family member,” Fairley’s cousin, Daphne Ballard, said.

Fairley’s family says they had the full funeral, and the body was buried.

“They gave us the wrong body and the wrong person was buried,” Ballard said.

A few hours later, they say they got a call from Williams’ family saying they were looking at Fairley in what was supposed to be Williams’ casket at their viewing.

“That shouldn’t have been a mistake because bodies have tags. There shouldn’t be any way in the world those bodies got mixed up like that,” Joyce Walden, Fairley’s niece, said.

Fairley’s family says funeral home officials claimed it was the hospital’s fault. But the family says Fairley died in hospice care while Williams died at home, so they were never at the hospital.

The family claims funeral home officials then dug up Williams and buried Fairley shortly after.

“We paid for a funeral for her celebration, and she didn’t even get to have a funeral at all,” Ballard said. “[They] brought her back to the funeral home just for us to see her for probably 10 minutes.”

Walden added, “The way they did her after they fixed the mistake ... wig on backwards, lipstick hanging from one side to the other side.”

A person at the funeral home called what happened an honest mistake, saying Fairley was never improperly buried.

The family says they have yet to receive an apology.

Officials at the funeral home said everything has been corrected, with the right people in their corrected places.