Lawrence Jones Jr. will never go out of business.
“There’s been hundreds and hundreds of families that have made this trip down the stairs to make funeral arrangements,” said Jones.
But the recent uptick in crime has the Funeral Director of Lawrence A. Jones and Sons Funeral Chapel disturbed. He’s seeing more and more homicide victims in their 30’s, 20’s, teens, and younger.
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As a result, more and more mothers are feeling the same pain as Bridgette Johnson. There have been close to 250 murders in Kansas City in 2015 and 2016 combined. Her son Anthony was one of them.
“It happened October 4th 2015. I’ve never got any answers from that," said Johnson.
Johnson says planning a funeral for her son was the most difficult thing she’s ever had to do.
“It was very difficult. I had a lot of support with planning his funeral. But actually sitting there, preparing the obituary, finding pictures, I never thought I’d be going through that,” said Johnson.
Jones and fellow funeral director Marion Watkins, of Watkins Heritage Chapel say burying young people is not why they got into the business.
“Sometimes we leave here and we’re almost in tears because we see tragedies,” Jones tells 41 Action News. Watkins shares those sentiments. “If a grandmother lived to be 100, she passes on, then she’s had a wonderful life, but when they bring the grandson into us and he’s only 15, he hasn’t even begun to live a life.”
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Kevin Holmes can be reached at Kevin.Holmes@KSHB.com
