A deceased Australian woman’s family is accusing the funeral director at Hart’s Family Funerals of fraud. Janice Cecilia Valigura’s family is alleging the funeral director, Tony Hart, switched out a $1,700, silk-lined, ornate coffin the family purchased with a cheap, $70 wooden box. Following the requiem mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, a family friend noticed the casket delivered to the crematorium, which had been delivered an hour late, was suspiciously plain. Kerry Rothery, Valigura’s niece, said that the family friend, “knew the family would have gone to a huge effort to give Janice a respectful send-off and what she was put in was absolutely degrading to my aunty.” Rothery also claims that when the family confronted Hart about the swap, he claimed that such practice a common occurrence. Hart offered a statement and acknowledged that he switched the coffins, but said it was necessary to prevent damage to the more expensive coffin from the cold.
See Frank Chung, Funeral Home Swapped $1700 Coffin with $70 One, Family Claims, Fox News, January 12, 2018.
