WRONG BABY BURIED

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 9, 1 April 1927, Page 3

WRONG BABY BURIED

MISTAKEN IDENTITY GRIEF OF TWO MOTHERS A remarkable case of mistaken identity involving the burial of one infant in the name of another and the attendance of the wrong mother at the funeral while the real mother was inquiring frantically for the body of her baby has occurred at Middlesbrough. The 26-days-old infant son of Mr. Robert Foster, of Wellington Street, died suddenly and the body was taken to the public mortuary ,for a postmortem examination. The same day the 21-months-old daughter of Mr. Alfred John Dalton, of Hardman Street, died of diphtheria, and the body was taken to the sanatorium mortuary Instructions were given to an undertaker to remove the body from the mortuary, and he assumed that the public mortuary was indicated. An assistant obtained the body of the Foster baby from the public mortuary, believing it to be the Dalton baby, and the Dalton family attended the funeral. Mrs. Foster insisted on seeing her dead baby. She was taken to the cemetery, where the earth was removed and the lid of the coffin raised so that she might have a last look. Mrs. Dalton. having endured the pangs of a final parting, was called upon to endure the pain again. The casket name-plates were changed and the two coffins left in the same grave.