Just when it looked like ex-Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez was headed back to Caracas for burial, a brand new round of fighting between his wife and mistress has again left his body in a Miami funeral home limbo.
Cecilia Matos, his longtime companion in Miami and his daughters now deny that they ever reached any agreement to send CAP back to the Bolivarian paradise.
Perez, who died of a heart attack at age 88 back on Dec. 25, was first scheduled to be buried in Miami after a mass at St. Thomas the Apostle last Wednesday. But his wife back in Venezuela, Blanca Perez, whom he never divorced, filed a court motion to halt the burial.
Hours later, Matos and his Miami daughters issued a statement seemingly ending the feud, telling El Nuevo Herald they were "not going to challenge" his wife's move to bury him in Venezuela.
But they've apparently had a change of heart. Riptide left messages at Cecilia Matos' home in Brickell Key and with her lawyer, Juan Antunez, but we haven't heard back yet.
The AP reports that Matos' family denies they ever reached an agreement to send him home, telling the service that "this is in the hands of our lawyers now."
Perez's embalmed body, meanwhile, is resting in a Miami funeral home until the families -- or the courts -- sort out the mess.
We know what you're really wondering. What does Hugo Chavez -- who ousted Perez from power in 1992 -- think should happen?
He hasn't weighed in on the burial yet, but he did offer the family condolences last week -- while also inveighing against CAP's style of government ever returning to Venezuela.
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