HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) — The grieving family of a 19-year-old Texas man killed during a robbery is frustrated at the funeral home because they say he lost some of his hair that they wanted as a keepsake.
Kenneth Thomas, 19, was killed on August 26 during a robbery in Houston’s Fifth Ward. After his death, family members say they asked Oasis Funeral and Cremation in Aldine to preserve his hair for them ahead of his cremation.
“It was very heartbreaking because it was traumatic. The way he died was inappropriate,” said Lakisha Johnson, Thomas’ cousin.
Kenneth Thomas, 19, was killed during a robbery in Houston. Family members say they wanted to keep some of his hair, but the funeral home lost it.(Source: Family Brochure, KTRK via CNN)
The family says Thomas’ hair was styled in wicks at the time of his death. Some of his relatives, including his twin brother, planned to weave his hair into theirs.
‘He will never die. As long as we’re here, he’s still alive,” said Anastasia Kindle, Thomas’ niece.
Weeks after the funeral, the family received a bag of hair, but they said they realized almost immediately that it was not Thomas’s. They say they knew the 19-year-old’s hair well because they styled it.
“We don’t have it anymore,” Johnson said. ‘We don’t have that piece of him. That was the only part of him that we decided to keep, that we wanted to keep in the family, to keep him alive. We don’t have it, and it hurts. Ultimately, it’s not right.”
Tanya Roberson, the funeral home owner, admits the family received someone else’s hair and says she can’t find Thomas’ hair.
The incident left the family wondering if they had received the ashes from the right person.
“It makes us question everything, even his ashes,” Johnson said. “Is this really him in this urn? We need to know that. Because if it’s not him in the urn, who is it?”
Roberson says she cut Thomas’ hair herself, so she knows it’s done. She says she recently went through a remodel at her facility and thinks it may have gotten out of place during that time. She says she’s still looking for it.
“I take responsibility for the problem that happened. I do. As much as you try to do everything perfectly, sometimes things still slip through the cracks,” Roberson said.
As for the family’s concerns about the ashes, she says there is no doubt they are Thomas’s.
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