Five days after her mother's funeral Mass, Darlene Cappelluti was sorting through her mother's documents when the phone rang.

The family was reeling from their mother's unexpected death three days after she had a massive heart attack on Christmas night in 2004. Jeanette Troyano was 77, very active in her community at Spanish Lakes Fairways in northern St. Lucie County and extremely close to her three adult children. Her loss was still raw when Cappelluti picked up the phone in her Sebastian home.

Two years later, Cappelluti said she still can't talk about that call without feeling sick to her stomach.

On the other end was a senior manager for the St. Lucie County funeral home that handled her mother's remains and funeral services. He told her there was a problem at the crematorium, that he suspected a pest or vermin got into the ceremonial casket.

Her hands started shaking and Cappelluti, 53, handed the phone to her husband.

''I was horrified,'' she recalled. ``I can't explain the shock. It twists something inside you. You can't grieve anymore because you have this horrible incident that you have to deal with.''

SAME STORY

Troyano's other daughter, LuAnn Commisso, 51, who lives in New York, said she received the same phone call.

Those conversations were at the center of a lawsuit that Cappelluti, Commisso and their brother, Edward Troyano, filed in late 2005 against SCI Funeral Services of Florida Inc., the parent company of Aycock Funeral Homes in St. Lucie County. They alleged that the company failed to safeguard and protect their mother's body during the days before her cremation and it did not inform them about the problem until after their mother's body had been cremated.

SCI has denied any wrongdoing by the company or its employees. Its attorney insists that no one knows for certain what caused an ''abrasion'' on Troyano's face, and a pest control company did not find signs of the presence of vermin at the crematory facility.

Last week, Troyano's adult children reached an agreement with SCI that resolved the lawsuit, and attorneys on both sides said they are not allowed to talk about the terms. Just three days before the case ended, Troyano's son and two daughters spoke publicly for the first time about their experience. They said they wanted the community to know about what happened to them.

''Hopefully, no one else will ever again get that phone call and hear those words we heard,'' Cappelluti said.

The manager at the funeral home first told her the vermin had soiled her mother's clothes, she said. Then he told her that a rodent of some kind also attacked the body, she said.

Now that the two sides have reached an agreement, there will be no trial.

''SCI is satisfied and pleased that the matter is resolved in a manner that the family is satisfied with as well,'' said Ted Craig, the company's Miami-based attorney.

Jeanette Troyano was always full of life, her children say. Even after she and her late husband retired to St. Lucie County in 1987, she was secretary of a bowling club, organized bingo games in her community and was always taking trips. During her lifetime, she worked as secretary to the president of Pan American Airlines, then in a bank and finally as a school crossing guard.

''Our mom was known for her bigger-than-life personality,'' Commisso said. ``But her sense of family was a tremendous part of who our mom was. No matter when we needed her, she would drop whatever it was and come to us.''

Her children say they talked to her every day.

And Troyano made her final wishes clear: She did not want to be buried.

''She was deathly afraid of the notion that, if we put her in the ground, the insects in the ground would somehow get into her casket,'' Commisso said.

Knowing that was her fear, Troyano's children said they have been tormented by thoughts about what might have happened to her body at the funeral home because photographs were not taken. They decided to file the lawsuit to get some answers.

NO PHOTOS

''In my line of work, when something happens, you want to document it,'' said Edward Troyano, a detective in Suffolk County, N.Y. ``I spent restless nights thinking about what happened to my mom.''

Stuart attorney Jack Sobel, who represents the family, said the family was left to speculate on the extent of the harm done to their mother's body.

''The big question is why did they go ahead with this cremation? Why were no photos taken?'' Sobel said before the suit ended.

Gary Maxwell, a senior location manager for SCI, made those first phone calls to Troyano's children. He said he first saw Troyano's remains in a ceremonial casket at Tri-County Crematory in Stuart on the Monday following her Friday funeral, according to his affidavit.

At that time, he noticed a ''small abrasion or lesion'' near the corner of Troyano's mouth, which looked like a sore, he said.

''I assumed the lesion was related to the cause of Mrs. Troyano's death and that the family had chosen not to have it concealed for the funeral services,'' he said in the affidavit.

Two days later, on Wednesday, he said an employee, Samuel Bryant, told Maxwell that he also noticed an abrasion that was not there when he embalmed her body before her funeral, Maxwell said.

''Upon receiving this information from Mr. Bryant, I immediately inquired by telephone as to the current location and status of Mrs. Troyano's remains,'' he said. ``I wanted to examine the remains and assess the matter. I was informed that the cremation process was under way.''

At that point, there were no remains to examine, Maxwell said. Craig, SCI's attorney, said that was why no photographs were taken.

''There was no decision made to document or not to document this,'' Craig said.

In court documents, Craig wrote that Maxwell ''suspected some type of vermin had molested the remains while they awaited cremation,'' but a pest company did not find evidence of any rodents in the facility. Craig wrote that ``neither Mr. Maxwell nor anyone else has personal knowledge of what, in fact, caused the abrasion.''

Edward Troyano said he sensed something was wrong when went to the funeral home that Wednesday to pick up his mother's ashes and was told she had not been cremated yet because of paperwork problems.

NO COVERUP

In documents, Craig wrote that ``had Mr. Maxwell's intention been to cover up the situation, he never would have informed the family, and this litigation would have been avoided. To the contrary, Mr. Maxwell testified that his purpose in informing the family was to fulfill Aycock's promise to be honest and forthright with its customers. . . . The fact that he informed the family of the abrasion after the cremation was simply the way in which the events unfolded.''

Still, Troyano and his sisters said the ordeal has taken an emotional toll. Cappelluti said it took a full year before she could talk about it.

''She was there for us through our entire lives, and I think there comes a point in time when it's your turn to take care of your mom,'' Troyano said, his voice trembling. ``Because of this, we feel like we weren't able to bring her to her final resting place and keep her safe.''

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