WEST PALM BEACH — Losing a family member is painful enough. Imagine showing up at the funeral home and finding a dead stranger in your loved one's clothing and casket.



Relatives made the heartbreaking discovery about an hour before Mary Anderson's viewing at Stevens Brothers Funeral Home in West Palm Beach.



When funeral staff opened the casket Friday, Marvelle Freeman was shocked to see a deceased stranger instead of her mother.



"We get here today for her wake, and it's not her," Freeman said. "They have somebody else in all of her belongings."



Funeral home employees told relatives that the mix-up happened because another deceased woman shared Anderson's first name, Freeman said. "Two Marys — both of their names are supposedly Mary," the grieving daughter said. "It's still no resemblance whatsoever."



A funeral home employee declined to comment outside the funeral home Friday. On Saturday, a phone message taken by a funeral home employee was not returned.



Anderson's family members said they took great care in choosing the outfit Anderson would wear for eternal rest. To find an unknown person in that clothing was appalling, they said.



"To take her undergarments and put on somebody else, and then take them off her, and put them back on [my sister] … Come on! Come on!" said Susan Williams, Anderson's sister. "That's not right."