Detroit family seeks answers after mother mistakenly cremated, remains still in dispute

DETROIT (FOX 2) - A Detroit family says their mother was cremated by mistake and now, more than 72 hours after the story broke, the family still does not know where her cremated remains are.

Hutchison Funeral Home incident

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On Monday, a family member says they have not been given the cremated remains of Kimberly Moore and the funeral home says something entirely different.

A spokesperson for Hutchison Funeral Home in Detroit says:

"The family refused the ashes after being offered them in an urn on Friday because one of the members of the family wanted to have a DNA test because they were unsure it was their mother. The Hutchinson Family offer to pay for a DNA. The ashes are available for the family to receive at any time."

But the family previously told FOX 2 their loved one being cremated was only the beginning of the trauma because the funeral home then put someone else's body in the casket for visitation.

"They tried to suggest I do a closed casket, and I’m like, closed casket for what? I looked at the lady’s feet," said daughter Bianca Robinson. "I said I want to see the feet. Let me see the feet because my momma have a mole on her feet. He opened the back and showed me the feet. I looked at him and said this is not my momma. He looked at me and said, well I’m so sorry it was two ladies that came when your mom was sent here, and they got cremated. I said, so who is this? He said he didn’t know.

In a nutshell, they made a mistake and cremated my momma and they shouldn’t have."

On Friday, Kimberly Moore’s family arrived at Hutchison Funeral Home on East 7 Mile in Detroit for a viewing when they learned their mother's body was gone. The funeral home says it’s trying to figure out what went wrong and will, "make the family whole."

DNA in cremated remains

What they're saying:

Meanwhile, FOX 2 spoke with one of the managers of a totally separate chain of funeral homes, who said it is very unlikely you would get any usable DNA after a body has been fully cremated and that there are countless systems in place to prevent things like this from ever happening.

"Safeguards are always that our funeral home, specifically. If a family isn’t doing a visitation or a service, we require the family to send us some sort of identification so that we can do a photo comparative ID," said Michael Martenson from Martenson Family of Funeral Homes Inc. "We will normally take a photo of the defender and put it in a private place to where we can do the photo comparison. From there, a licensed funeral director would transfer them to a cremation tray. That tray is then marked, labeled with their information. Normally the hospital paperwork or something that’s been photo copied is with it."

"First of all, if I was their attorney, what I would tell them is you need to get on this right away. We need information," said Martenson. "We’ve got to go to the press. We’ve got to be transparent. First thing we got to call the family and let them know what happened. Secondly, whoever created the problem has to go. That was a big boo boo in my mind, and they got to let that person go and then, if the family does not have an attorney, then the funeral home should be talking to them and should be spending some time with them."

FOX 2 pressed for more detailed information from the funeral home. Their spokesperson declined to elaborate any further beyond the statement we shared with you a moment ago, but added that the funeral home will have more to say on this tomorrow at 6 p.m.

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