By Erin O’Neill/The Star-Ledger From NJ.com

ENGLEWOOD — Margaret Porkka died while vacationing in the Caribbean over Thanksgiving.

Now her family is working on retrieving what they believe are the Englewood resident’s cremated remains from Canada, after discovering last month that the wrong body had been sent to New Jersey.

“It’s been awful,” said Porkka’s daughter, Judi Tymon. “It’s tearing us apart.”

Tymon said Porkka has been traveling to a time share in St. Maarten every year to spend time with her seven children. She said her 82-year-old mother was feeling well the whole vacation, dancing and partying.

But Tymon, a nurse, said on Thanksgiving night her mother didn’t look well. Tymon called for help after checking her blood pressure but as they waited for paramedics, Porkka stopped breathing.

She was pronounced dead at a hospital later that evening. Tymon said she removed her mother’s jewelry at the hospital. The next day she gave clothes to the director of Emerald Funeral Home, near the hospital, to dress her mother’s body for the journey home.

But Tymon said her mother’s body never made it home, though the body that arrived in New Jersey was dressed in her mother’s clothes.

Tymon said she first suspected something may be wrong when the Bergen County funeral director helping her family unravel this mess gave her jewelry he found on the body.

“That sent a little bell ringing because I had taken her jewelry off,” she said. But she thought maybe the clothing she gave the funeral home in St. Maarten had jewelry in the pockets that was then put on the body.

Tymon said she walked in just before the next day’s scheduled viewing and discovered the wrong woman in the casket.

“Can you imagine walking up and expecting to see your mother there and it wasn’t her?” she said.

Porkka’s family confirmed the body was not their mother’s and Frank Patti Jr. of Frank A. Patti and Kenneth Mikatarian Funeral Home in Fort Lee said he alerted the Bergen County Medical Examiner’s Office, where the unidentified body had since been transported.

Tymon said she believes the funeral home in St. Maarten sent her mother’s body to Canada, where it was cremated. She said once she gets confirmation that it is her mother’s remains in Canada, she’ll have them returned to New Jersey.

Tymon said Orlando Vanterpool, the funeral director in St. Maarten, repeatedly misled her family, as well as officials. She said after her mother’s body was scheduled to be flown home, Vanterpool demanded $7,000 in cash to release it.

Vanterpool told The Associated Press it was policy to not release remains until all payments have been made. He said to his knowledge, “We sent the correct human remains.”

Sarah Wescot-Williams, the prime minister of St. Maarten, told the AP the bodies of two women in their 80s were flown to the United States on the same airline. The body flown to Canada was cremated, she said.

She said the government has formed a committee to investigate the matter at the request of U.S. officials.

Tymon’s father did not travel to St. Maarten with the family. He did not have the chance to say goodbye to his wife of more than 60 years.

“It’s very, very traumatic,” Tymon said. “People couldn’t make this up.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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