A Maryland Woman Is Suing A Funeral Home For Staging Her Husbands Cremation

A Maryland woman is suing a local funeral home for staging her husband’s cremation and taking orders from another woman while accepting both parties’ money.

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Burying a loved one is never easy. The entire process can be filled with issues and if the person who passed didn’t have their business in order, it’s a stressful situation. Sometimes a person can die unexpectedly and with no money, leaving the weight of burial costs on the family. Plus, if the person has remarried, kids from a previous relationship may want to be heard and involved as well, making everything more complicated.

According to Complex, a woman is suing her local funeral home for allegedly staging her husband’s cremation and burying him by the orders of others.

52-year-old Demetra Street filed the federal lawsuit last week in the US District Court for the District of Maryland. The woman claims Wylie Funeral Homes conducted a “sham” service for her husband, Ivan T. Street, back in January, just days after he was buried at the direction of another woman who claimed to be his wife.

The plaintiff says the other woman had also contacted the funeral home to make service arrangements for Ivan T. Street. That woman reportedly provided a decades-old, unofficial marriage certificate and made plans for Ivan T. Street to be buried. An employee of the funeral home reportedly notified Street about the other woman’s claims; Street instructed the business to ignore the woman’s requests and proceed with the cremation, in accordance with her husband’s wishes.

Street accused the funeral home of failing to verify the woman’s claims, and ultimately collected payments for both services. The business allegedly buried Ivan T. Street at Mt. Zion Cemetery, and then held a bogus cremation ceremony for Street shortly after. The plaintiff says she learned about the alleged scam from a Wylie family member, who revealed her husband had been buried earlier that week.

This is just about as messy of a situation as one could be. Plus, you have to remember this could be considered playing with a corpse, which isn’t going to go unpunished. If the funeral home indeed made a mistake and didn’t verify the claims before listening to the other woman, this lawsuit is better off being settled.