Margaret Porkka died suddenly while on vacation in St. Maarten.

That made things hard enough for her daughter, Lisa Kondvar.

Arranging for transportation and a funeral while waiting for the body to be returned to the United States was the tip of the iceberg for Kondvar.

When she and other family members went to a New Jersey funeral home for her mother’s wake they got a huge shock.

The body in the casket wasn’t her mom.

"I looked up, and I was like, 'Good God, are you kidding me?' I was stunned," Kondvar remembered.

Instead the body was that of a Canadian woman who died on the island about the same time.

It’s believed workers at the hospital or funeral home confused the two and made the switch by accident.

The other body was sent to Canada where it was cremated.

The family has hired a detective to determine if their mom was indeed cremated in Canada and to find out how the mistake was made.

Because the mistake wasn’t discovered until just before the wake was to begin, the family went ahead with the service but with a closed casket.

More here including video.