Rel­a­tives of Raphael Gar­cia are con­sid­er­ing their le­gal op­tions, af­ter they re­alised that at the end of his fu­ner­al ser­vice yes­ter­day, it was not his body in the cas­ket but an­oth­er de­ceased.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Keon Cun­ning­ham said the fam­i­ly on­ly found out the wrong body was at the ser­vice in Curepe when the fi­nal view­ing was be­ing done. 

“When we opened the cas­ket to do the of­fi­cial view­ing, it was not my grand­fa­ther. When we did our re­search, we saw that the per­son who was in the cas­ket was a man who died on De­cem­ber 20th. It seems as though no­body ever claimed the body.” 

He added: “So we are ask­ing our­selves if they tried to give us a six for a nine. The type of emo­tion­al trau­ma my mom, my aunts went through to­day (Fri­day) was hor­rif­ic. Be­cause we all were ex­pect­ing some­thing, some­one that did not come. And I’m just try­ing to find out how an­oth­er fam­i­ly would have felt know­ing that an­oth­er body went down in a hole that they too didn’t see, a rel­a­tive that they too didn’t see.” 

Cun­ning­ham added that when the body was re­turned to the Curepe-based fu­ner­al home, his grand­fa­ther’s body was there still with the clothes he died in at his Curepe home on Feb­ru­ary 24. The fu­ner­al home then switched clothes and took his grand­fa­ther’s body to be buried. How­ev­er, Cun­ning­ham said the oth­er de­ceased man had al­ready been blessed, as last rites were per­formed dur­ing the fu­ner­al ser­vice. 

“Know­ing that the type of life he lived, and he doesn’t get to meet his mak­er with an earth­ly bless­ing as such, is very un­fair,” the grand­son said. 

Cun­ning­ham said his grand­fa­ther was a great man who fa­thered nine chil­dren and had 16 grand­chil­dren and six great-grand­chil­dren.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the fu­ner­al home twice and was told man­agers were in meet­ings both times. An of­fi­cial promised that af­ter the meet­ing a man­ag­er would re­turn the call, but that did not hap­pen up to press time. 

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, As­so­ci­a­tion of Fu­ner­al Pro­fes­sion­als of Trinidad and To­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Bel­grove said he was un­aware of the in­ci­dent. 

In 2019 a sim­i­lar in­ci­dent oc­curred when Eaulin Blondel was cre­mat­ed be­fore her fam­i­ly had fi­nal rites for her, leav­ing her griev­ing rel­a­tives ask­ing for her ash­es. 

Blondel’s fam­i­ly found out about the in­ci­dent when her chil­dren went to view her body in­side the chapel – and re­alised the body in the cof­fin was not that of their moth­er. 

They told mourn­ers al­ready gath­ered that the fu­ner­al would be a bit lat­er than ex­pect­ed, as there was a “mix-up” that need­ed to be ad­dressed. Af­ter a fran­tic search, the fu­ner­al home said Blondel was cre­mat­ed a week ear­li­er.