N.J. funeral home withheld mother’s ashes, lost her jewelry, lawsuit says (2024)

A Bergen County woman is suing the owners of a funeral home in Paterson, claiming they withheld her mother’s ashes for months after cremation and lost treasured pieces of her mother’s jewelry.

Aisha Smith, of Teaneck, states in court papers Carnie P. Bragg Funeral Home on Rosa Parks Boulevard mishandled a cremation and funeral for Valerie Wilson, 72, who died on July 8, 2022.

Smith says months passed before she received her mother’s ashes and the jewelry her mother wore during the ceremony has since disappeared, according to a lawsuit filed July 4 in Superior Court of Passaic County.

Harris M. Holloway, manager of Carnie P. Bragg Funeral Home, denied the allegations on Wednesday. “You have to know there are things in place to make sure these things don’t occur,” Holloway said.

“It’s a case of sensationalism fueled by I don’t know what,” he said, before declining to comment further due to pending litigation.

Wilson was a lifelong Paterson resident, a medical lab technician for over 41 years, and a fierce supporter of former President Barack Obama.

She served as a delegate at the Democratic National Convention in Colorado in 2008, and was interviewed on the news showing off her Obama collectibles in her home, according to her obituary.

“Valerie attended weekly Mass and never missed holy days of obligation. She started each morning with prayer and called in to a daily prayer line regularly,” her obituary says.

Wilson passed away in Sinai Hospital of Baltimore during a trip to Maryland two years ago.

Within an hour of her death, Holloway and the funeral director at Carnie P. Bragg Funeral Home contacted Smith to discuss funeral arrangements, the lawsuit says.

Three days later, on July 11, 2022, Smith agreed to pay the funeral home $7,000 for services and cremation. The funeral was scheduled for July 15 and the cremation was scheduled to occur at a separate facility on July 16, 2022, the suit says.

Smith says she took her mother’s burial clothes and treasured pieces of her mother’s jewelry, including heirlooms from a grandmother and a century old ring from her great-grandmother, to the funeral home the day before the service.

An exhibit list included with the civil complaint claims that personal items lost by the funeral home included a 2008 President Obama “Hope” pin, a Marcus Garvey flag, and an antique family heirloom ring from the 1900s.

Immediately following the service, Smith asked if she and her family could be present for the cremation.

The funeral home told Smith she and her family “were not permitted to attend the cremation, but that she would receive a call in a week or so to pick up her mother’s ashes and personal property,” the suit says.

For several weeks, Smith called the funeral home asking for her mother’s ashes and personal property, but each time was promised she would receive a call when the items were ready, according to the suit.

On Aug. 12, 2022, Smith says she was forced to cancel a service for the interment of her mother’s ashes at George Washington Memorial Park in Paramus because the funeral home didn’t return her mother’s ashes. They also did not call her back as promised, the suit says.

Smith “was at a loss of what to do and anguished over not being able to bring closure to her mother’s passing,” the suit says.

On Sept. 22, 2022, “after months of waiting and being told numerous excuses,” Smith went to Carnie P. Bragg Funeral Home in person “to demand the return of her mother’s ashes and personal property,” the suit says.

A worker told her to come back later, but Smith refused to leave. After waiting more than a half hour, the funeral home “provided her with a bag containing a box visibly stained with an unknown liquid, bearing a label claiming to contain her mother’s ashes,” according to the suit.

None of the jewelry or other personal property was returned, and the funeral home called Smith the next day to tell her the items had been cremated along with the body. But the crematorium denied this, telling Smith her mother’s body arrived without jewelry, the suit alleges.

“Plaintiff’s anguish at this revelation had her question if the ashes given to her by the defendants were even her mother’s ashes,” the suit says.

“To this day, due to defendant’s dilatory and evasive behavior, plaintiff still has not been able to bring herself to hold an internment ceremony for her mother’s cremains, due to her uncertainty and doubt over whether the cremains actually belong to her mother,” the suit says.

To add insult to injury, Carnie P. Bragg Funeral Home in December 2022 mailed Smith a check for $500 without any explanation. She never cashed the check, according to the suit.

“Plaintiff was appalled by the defendant’s apparent attempt to compensate for their unprofessional behavior, interference with her right of closure and the inexcusable loss of/or refusal to return her mother’s property,” the suit alleges.

The lawsuit accuses the funeral home of several counts of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, breach of contract, bad faith, and of violating the New Jersey’s consumer fraud laws.

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Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.