Family finds stranger inside uncle's casket

The nephew spotted the mistake while everyone initially tried to convince him it was his uncle. Photo / 123RF

A family in Tennessee was shocked to find a strange man, complete with their uncle's outfit, lying in the casket meant for their uncle.

The family was gathered at John P. Franklin Funeral Home in Chattanooga on Wednesday for the wake of Benjamin Brown Jr.

When his nephew Willie Brown took a look at the casket, he was surprised to find a stranger instead of his uncle.

He told WRCB-TV 3: "I said 'this ain't my uncle'". Everyone around him momentarily insisted it was indeed his uncle, just with makeup making him look different.

Willie continued to insist that the man was definitely not his uncle and finally got the funeral home staff to listen when he told them his uncle was a double amputee.

"The man was like, 'Well let's open the bottom of the casket,'" he told the station.

"So, the funeral director opened the bottom of the casket, and when he opened the bottom of the casket he was like, (gasp) and he slammed the casket and said, 'Y'all get out.'"

Benjamin Brown Jr's body, it turned out, was still at the morgue and was brought out 30 minutes later.

"The suit we bought my uncle to get buried in, they had put it on the other guy," Brown added. "So, we had to wait for them to take the clothes off this dead man and put it on my uncle so my uncle could get buried in his own clothes."

The family is pleased it all ended up but want to ensure this never happens to anyone else.

"What if we would have had a closed casket?" Willie asked. "We could have sent this man to the grave. We could've buried someone else's loved one and they wouldn't have never known."

The funeral home has apologised for the mix-up.