[Duane Harvey] “This is where we come into. The bodies are brought in here, taken into the morgue.” [Saundra McFadden-Weaver] “She passed away a few days ago. And so now they’re honoring her.” [Theresa Lewis, Family Member] “She was an innocent bystander. And she died for their crime.” [Duane Harvey] “You’d be surprised how many people today are having to go to counseling after these homicide services.” [Saundra McFadden-Weaver] “He was shot and killed in an attempt to carjack him.” [Duane Harvey] “Sometimes we come in here 24 hours a day.” Funeral & Burials Services for Victims of Homicide Lawrence J. Jones & Sons Funeral Chapel [Duane Harvey] Hello, I’m Duane. E. Harvey. I’m the manager at Lawrence J. Jones & Sons Funeral Chapel here in Kansas City, Missouri. I’ve been in and around the funeral business since, 1970, so I’m on my 54th year of service. “We got a screen that we put in here now, and so we can have people sit over here next to see the service is over there.” Carrying out a homicide funeral, again, we get the call from the family, and then my role, my task is to get the body and the body comes in here, and it goes into our morgue area over here. This is our morgue area over in there. We see what all we need to do to the loved one and then we are normally schedule an appointment for someone comes in, to see what type of services the family wants to do, if it’s going to be a burial, if it’s going to be cremation, pick out a casket. “These are rental caskets. you have the, the cases that you rent now.” “This is how we raise it up. We put the bodies in, but again, we just take right here.” “This end opens up, it falls down. And then the tray, this is just rolls here. And the tray, the rolling. Just slide it right out and they’ve got a little layer that goes on top where we need to take the body to the Crematorium.” We talk to the families, are they going to do flowers, programs and all those kind of things, because we are an A to Z funeral home, and then we go on and plan the services. “We average, good portion sometimes, average 3 to 5 a month, there’s been some weeks we had one a day.” And planning the services, we also share with the family that there would possibly be, that we have to have security and especially if we don’t know what transpired as it relates to the services However, there’s some challenges, in these days and time to go along with, those kinds of funeral, because as appears to be a very sensitive situation and sometimes with families not knowing, what transpired or who the perpetrator was, there’s a lot of alarms and concerns. And so we’re trying to attempt to do everything we can to make the family comfortable during that particular time of arrangements. 12 Gates Memorial Gardens [Saundra McFadden-Weaver, President XII Gates Memorial Gardens] Well, unfortunately, it has happened again. Homicide has come into our community in domestic violence, and the young lady that we’re burying today was a victim of a domestic violence situation about a year ago. [Theresa Lewis, Family Member] She was an innocent victim. She was just riding with the people, and she got shot. It wasn’t even her issue. [Saundra McFadden-Weaver] She was shot. And, she has lived until now. She passed away a few days ago. And so now they’re honoring her Roy and his sister were together. They walked away, and the man went to his tow truck and pulled out, I think, an AR-15 or AK-47, and he shot both of them to death. When it’s a homicide funeral, what we do coming in the gate is to see to it that the family is going to be safe while they’re here. [Theresa Lewis, Family Member] “She always came with a shine, with a smile, with peace. She never had an enemy in her life. No.” [Saundra McFadden-Weaver] If police are needed, we call them in advance and have their police presence. Our staff, of course, is in on on site watching over the family and doing everything we can to comfort them and see to it that there is no further altercation here. Often, sometimes that happens. So we try to have the authorities here to see to it that everyone is safe, and we clear the area as soon as possible. We’ve never turned anyone away at XII Gates, whether they had money or not. We don’t believe in pomp or feel, so we don’t have one. Every person that’s buried in XII Gates actually has an individual grave with an individual identification number. It’s very important to us to do that. When you come in the gates, you become a part of our family and we treat you like family. No one that comes here is just a number to us. We care. Behind the Scenes of Crime Scene Cleanup Producer, John McGrath Goes Behind-the-Scenes on Crime Scene Cleanup Learn More This video is part of a series supporting important conversations about crime reduction strategies and available resources for those impacted by violent crime. Stream ‘A Tale of Three Cities’, a new documentary from filmmaker Michael Price exploring successful crime reduction programs in Kansas City, Kansas, and Omaha, Nebraska, immersing viewers in critical conversations about curbing violent crime in Kansas City, MO, and inspiring meaningful action. ‘A Tale of Three Cities’ and complementary reporting on flatlandkc.org was made possible, in part, by funding from The William T. Kemper Foundation, Commerce Bank, Trustee. John McGrath is a multimedia producer for Kansas City PBS/Flatland. The post Compassion Amid Tragedy: Funeral Services for Victims of Homicide first appeared on Flatland.