Long Island Funeral Home Sued After Sending Coffin to Wrong Country

A New York family is suing a funeral home for mistakenly sending their mother’s casket to another country for burial.

Carmen Maldonado died two days after turning 96 years old. Her wish was to be buried in Ecuador next to her husband. Her family, who lives in Queens, was preparing for the funeral in Ecuador when they saw a video posted on TikTok that shocked them.

The video showed a family in Guatemala shocked to find a woman’s body in a coffin at their 38-year-old son’s funeral. It was Carmen Maldonado.

Both bodies were prepared by the same funeral home, Rivera Funeral Home in Corona.

“I was devastated, I couldn’t believe this could be such a big mess,” said Carmen’s daughter, Rosa Sicha. “I started crying and was extremely upset.”

The funeral home sent Carmen to Guatemala by mistake. Manuel Minchala, the youngest son, flew to Guatemala to bring her home.

“They tried to bury my mother in Guatemala, and I was begging people there. I had to deal with the health department, the police, a lot of big, big processes to export the body to a different country,” Minchala said.

When the family asked the funeral home about the mix-up, they claimed the funeral home denied it. Now the family is suing the funeral home and the company that owns it.

“They tried to cover it up and there is no excuse for that. And if the family hadn’t seen this on TikTok and confronted them, the funeral home would never have told them,” said attorney Phil Rizzuto.

Neither the funeral home nor its attorney had any comment. The family managed to bring her back to Ecuador, where she took some time to rest.