A family was grieving their mum, when they noticed something horribly wrong in her casket.

Maurice Dunn and his family were preparing to say their final goodbyes to his mother, Alice Dunn, when they noticed something was horribly wrong.

The body that lay in the casket at the funeral home wasn’t that of his mother. Instead, it was a total stranger, dressed in her clothes.

"I told them, 'that ain't our mama'," Maurice, from Flint, Michigan in the United States told WNEM News.

"It was a total stranger dressed in the clothing that my brother Joey [picked out] and the wig selected for our mother."

When Maurice informed the employees at Swanson Funeral Home that something had gone terribly wrong, they denied there was any mistake.

"The funeral staff insisted that it was our mother and that a name band is the reason why he definitively knew it was our mother," he said.

Maruice's brother Joe Leverette described the situation as "very unprofessional".

The funeral home eventually corrected the mistake, replacing the stranger's body with Alice Dunn's, but the family said they were never offered any explanation as to how the mix-up occurred.

"They didn't offer the family lot of explanations, except it did occur," he said.

He now has a message for the funeral home's employees.

"Admit your negligence. Second of all, apologise whole-heartedly to the entire family."