But the story wasn’t over. Kyle eventually admitted that his uncle had left him a funeral business carrying $400,000 in debt. Instead of confronting the problem honestly, he had invented additional charges for families with older prepaid arrangements. He maintained a spreadsheet identifying customers with existing plans and targeted those who appeared too frightened to challenge him.
Thirty-one families had been charged between 2019 and that October, totaling more than $310,000. Mom listened quietly before asking how many people he’d hurt. Gene then opened the folder again and produced another handwritten note from Dad. It instructed Mom to contact the state funeral board if Kyle ever became a problem. Dad had even misspelled a word in his familiar hurried handwriting. I laughed through my tears. It was exactly something he would have done. On Thursday, we buried him in the plain oak casket he had chosen. But what happened afterward would reveal just how far his final act of protection reached.
THE STORY CONTINUES ON THE NEXT PAGE… 👇👇👇
