Published: June 1, 2025
KAKATA, Margibi County – A funeral turned chaotic Friday when family members at Solomon Tubee Funeral Home discovered that the body prepared for burial was not their loved one—but a complete stranger who had already been buried days earlier, mistakenly, too, but later exhumed.
The incident occurred on the afternoon of May 30 as relatives, sympathizers, and mourners gathered to pay their final respects to Ma Mary Massaquoi, whose body had been deposited at the funeral home two weeks prior.
Emmanuel Borbor, a son-in-law of the deceased, was among the first to raise the alarm when he noticed the corpse being presented bore no resemblance to Ma Massaquoi.
“The body we deposited had deep open teeth and long hair,” Borbor said. “The body they gave us was short and had no teeth at all.”
Despite initial reassurances from the funeral home’s staff that the body belonged to their loved one, the family stood firm in their objection, prompting tensions that led to police being called to the scene.
An investigation later confirmed a case of mistaken identity. Another elderly woman, also held at the facility, had been mistakenly identified as Ma Massaquoi and was buried by a different family on Tuesday, May 27, in Sanoyea, Bong County.
Patrick Tubee, CEO of the funeral home, admitted fault and attributed the mistake to a “technical error” by his staff. In response, he said a team was immediately dispatched to Sanoyea to retrieve the body after observing traditional rites required by the local community.
The body was exhumed and returned to Kakata nearly three days after being mistakenly buried.
Family members of Ma Massaquoi expressed heartbreak over the ordeal, saying the incident disrupted what should have been a dignified farewell.
“She suffered in life, and now even in death, she was denied peace—buried, exhumed, and only now getting the proper goodbye she deserves,” one family member said.
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