A father grieving the death of his newborn baby discovered the child hadn't even existed after digging up the coffin and finding a plastic doll inside.

Rosa Castellanos Diaz, from El Coyolar in Honduras, allegedly spent nine months pretending to be pregnant with twins, according to local media reports.

She then fooled her family into believing she had given birth before feigning the death of one in a bizarre attempt to keep her wayward partner by her side.

She went so far as to stage the baby's funeral at her local graveyard in El Coyolar, where distraught family and friends took turns to carry the coffin and say an emotional farewell.

Friends doubted Rosa Castellanos Diaz's story that she gave birth to twins in secret and that one died, which was followed by a funeral

They were shocked to discover a dressed-up toy doll inside the coffin that they exhumed

But the next day, friends of the child's father, Melvin Mendoza, reportedly began to doubt Ms Diaz's story and decided to dig up the coffin - and found a plastic doll dressed up as a baby inside.

Ms Diaz reportedly convinced friends and relatives that she was pregnant and kept up the charade for the whole nine months, even announcing she was expecting twins after an ultrasound scan.

On Friday morning, she left her village home and took a bus to the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, claiming she was heading for the city's Escuela Hospital to give birth to her babies.

That night, she reportedly called Mr Mendoza, a member of the Honduran Armed Forces, to tell him the bad news that one of the twins had died while being delivered.

Ms Diaz reportedly convinced friends and relatives that she was pregnant and kept up the charade for the whole nine months

As is custom, the father and his relatives held a wake and awaited the arrival of Ms Diaz and the dead child.

She arrived on Saturday, carrying the child's small white coffin, but told them that they could not see the baby as the hospital had sealed the coffin and prohibited her from opening it.

Ms Diaz also claimed that she had left the other twin being cared for in hospital.

The wake continued through the afternoon, with coffee, bread and other snacks served for friends and family who had come to pay their respects.

Later that afternoon, the baby's funeral procession left from the house towards the cemetery, with friends and family taking turns to carry the coffin, before burying it after a short ceremony.

A distressed Mr Mendoza reportedly had to be supported by friends as he lowered the coffin into the ground.

But following the funeral, a number of Mr Mendoza's friends decided to exhume the coffin to find out the truth after fearing Ms Diaz had invented the story to convince him not to leave her.

One, Ismael Mejia, told Honduras' El Heraldo newspaper: 'The whole thing didn't seem right. So in the night we went to the cemetery to dig it up.

'When we pulled out the box, to our surprise what we found inside was a doll, dressed up as if it were a child.

'We took the coffin to the police so they could see that we didn't take the child out of the box and replace it with a doll.'

After discovering the cruel trick, Mr Mendoza decided not to press charges against Ms Diaz, according to reports.