South African man shocked to find another woman in dead wife’s casket

Staff at a funeral home in South Africa accidentally put a different woman’s body inside a coffin that should have contained the body of Michael Galant’s 58-year-old wife Magdalene. Getty Images file photo

London, Feb 1 (IANS) A man in South Africa was horrified when he opened the casket at his dead wife’s funeral and found a stranger inside.

Staff at a funeral home accidentally put a different woman’s body inside a coffin that should have contained the body of Michael Galant’s 58-year-old wife Magdalene, the Daily Mail in England reported.

“I opened my wife’s casket and she didn’t look right. I immediately knew something was wrong,” Galant said.

“My daughter came to me and said: ‘That’s not mummy’, and then I knew this was a big mistake.”

Their daughter said the family questioned the undertakers about the body swap. The staff initially tried to convince them they had delivered the right body.

She said the company later admitted to pulling out the wrong drawer at the morgue.

The family tried to stop the funeral but organizers convinced them to go ahead as planned.

They were later shown the right body.

The company had apologized and promised to arrange a second funeral.

Tags: dead wife, South Africa, stranger