Woman devastated after she says Inglewood Cemetery Mortuary lost her mother's ashes

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (KABC) -- Losing a loved one is never easy, but for one local family, the loss has gotten worse because of an apparent mortuary mix-up in Inglewood.

A family member told Eyewitness News she tried collecting her mother's ashes from the mortuary on Monday, and she was told they had already been scattered -- without her consent.

The business's website says the Inglewood Cemetery Mortuary is one of the few family owned funeral homes still in Los Angeles.

Beverly Haynes has used their services after the deaths of her grandparents, her father and most recently her mother, Janice. Janice died suddenly after a fall where she hit her head.

Janice's daughter arrived at the mortuary, located along west Manchester Boulevard.

"I waited for an hour, and then I was told the remains had already been picked up by somebody else. I asked them, 'Who?' And they couldn't tell me who," Haynes explained.

When no one from the mortuary could provide her mother's ashes, the mortuary told her they had already been scattered at sea.

"Based on the information that they wrote on the paper, that they had somebody come and pick them up and scatter them themselves without my consent, like who does that?" Haynes added.

Haynes said she had told the mortuary she planned to scatter her mother's remains at sea, and they had made note of it.

"She said, 'I'm sorry we dropped the ball. It was a miscommunication,' and that's all they told me," Haynes said.

Officials from the mortuary did not provide a statement to ABC7 but said they were investigating the incident.

As for Haynes, she said she was working on contacting an attorney.