Family in Shock as Corpse Goes Missing from Mortuary on Burial Day

Friends and family of a woman who died after a brief illness have been shocked after her corpse go missing.

Mrs. Ayoka Buhari

According to Punch Metro, friends and family of a 55-year-old woman who had died after a brief illness in Ogun state, have been shocked to their bones after her corpse could not be found in the mortuary on the day of her burial.

 

On Thursday, everything was already set for the burial and the burial ground had also been prepared as friends and bereaved family members gathered for her interment in the family compound.

However, as the family approached the management of the TOS Funerals, which manages a morgue in the Gbagada General Hospital, for the corpse around 8:00am, the body could not be found.

Reports revealed that the corpse had been mistakenly swapped for another. A relative, Folorunsho Adeoluwa, expressed sadness over the incident, threatening legal action against the owners of the morgue.

"The family was asked to come for the corpse at 8.30am today (Thursday), but when we got there, we discovered that they were not ready for us. Later, they said the woman’s husband must show up before they release her corpse. Her daughter, however, insisted on seeing the corpse. They brought out a corpse and she raised the alarm that it was not her mother."

After much enquiries, a worker in the morgue, identified as Femi, explained that there was a problem of mistaken identity and told the family that the corpse was wrongly tagged and given to another man, who lost his wife.

It was gathered that the deceased’s husband and a few family members rushed down to Matori, Mushin, to meet the man who was suspected to have taken the corpse. On getting to the place, the family discovered that the corpse had been buried.

"The man said he had buried his wife and he could not exhume her body unless the family showed him the picture of the corpse they have in the mortuary. We all rushed back to the morgue and took a picture of the corpse that the hospital wanted to give us."

The first family later identified the photo of the corpse as theirs, but it was not established if the buried one was that of Mrs. Buhari.

A relative, Deborah Ogunfowora, berated morgue managers for being 'careless.' She said, "They don’t know their jobs. They are just making excuses. They said the two corpses were brought in at the same time and the mistake happened when they were tagging them."

The spokesperson for the morgue, identified simply as Olumide, said the corpse had been found and the family was going for the burial around 7:pm.

"There was just a mix up, which has been sorted out. I am with the family; they are driving ahead of me. We are on our way to bury the corpse. The matter has been resolved," he said.