An Amityville, New York, funeral home and its director accused of burying the wrong body despite the family raising concerns are being sued by the woman's children for $88 million.
The 11 children of Sadie Williams said in their suit that the Joseph A. Slinger-Hasgill Funeral Home caused them "severe mental, psychological, traumatic injuries” after mixing up their mother's body with someone else's.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in New York State Supreme Court in Queens.
A person who answered the phone at the funeral home Friday said they could not comment on pending litigation and did not want to speak about the incident.
Williams died Aug. 17, according to the lawsuit. Before her death, her children retained Joseph A. Slinger-Hasgill Funeral Home to hold a service in accordance with Muslim tradition, the suit states. According to NBC New York, a traditional Islamic burial means the family has three days to bury their loved one after a death.
A day before Williams' funeral was scheduled, daughter Salimah Lee viewed the body and told director Joseph Slinger that it was not her mother.
Slinger insisted it was, the lawsuit says.
The children held a funeral and burial Aug. 20. According to the lawsuit, Slinger again told the children that it was the correct body being buried.
But Williams’ body had been left “abandoned” in the funeral home’s morgue, according to the family's suit.
Slinger contacted them the day after the burial and informed them about the mixup, the suit states. The funeral director allegedly told the family that the incorrect body would be exhumed so Williams could be buried.
On Sept. 8, the family held another funeral to bury Williams. The children and other out-of-state relatives had to travel back to New York for the second service.
The suit says that the funeral home conducted another service and burial, but "did not provide full funeral services for this second service."
"This should not even have happened to her," Lee told NBC New York.
Lee's brother broke down in tears as he talked about how the family trusted the funeral home to "do the right thing."
"Even now, it's like, every day I have that memory in my head seeing my mother still above the ground," he said.
When Lee raised concerns about the body not being her mother's, she said Slinger told her that the embalming fluid made Williams look different.
The family's attorney, Philip Rizzuto, told the news station that Slinger should have checked as soon as concerns were raised.