Murder Victim’s Burial Stirs Racial Tension
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More than a year ago, an unidentified woman’s body was found on a road, her dark hair shorn off, a plastic bag taped around her head, her hands severed. She had been strangled and tossed away by her killer.
Today, the crime remains unsolved, the murder victim’s name is still unknown and efforts to bury her have set off controversy in Waller County—a rural area just west of Houston that is long roiled by racial divisions.
The victim is white, while the funeral home and cemetery that a justice of the peace initially chose to handle her burial in Hempstead are historically black.
But Waller County Commissioners Court balked at paying for that burial. When activists started raising questions about the county’s hesitation at burying the woman in a black cemetery, the commissioners asked a white-owned funeral home in Waller to handle arrangements.
That outraged Walter Pendleton, a local black minister who filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Hempstead that forced it to integrate its public cemeteries.
“I’m just appalled right now. I can’t believe this county stooped that low,” he said. “The county overstepped its boundary to get a white funeral home to pick up the body so that it could not be buried in a black cemetery.”
The victim would be the first known white person buried in a black cemetery in Waller County. Since March 25, Waller County has paid neighboring Harris County $50 a day to store the body.
“I have never seen such defiance and determination to protect a segregated system,” said DeWayne Charleston, the Waller County justice of the peace who first ordered the black funeral home to handle the arrangements.
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Rather, he attributed the delay in burial to the black funeral home director’s insistence that the county sign a letter guaranteeing payment. Ralston said that went against county policy, and instead contacted another funeral home to handle the arrangements.
{snip}
Charleston said he wasn’t trying to cause trouble when he ordered the black funeral home to handle arrangements for the woman. He was simply struck by the brutality of the crime and the poignancy of a murder victim with no family to claim her.
{snip}
“It was gruesome and that no one identified her or claimed her makes it more horrific,” Charleston said. “I thought that this woman, if nothing else, was going to have the distinction of integrating Waller County cemeteries.”
(Posted on July 2, 2008)
Comments
A lot of time could have been saved - as well as diversity respected, to the satisfaction of all city officials involved, if the black murderer had simply thought to bury the body.
Posted by at 6:12 PM on July 2
No doubt this poor woman was herself “integrated” by one of the locals before she died.
Posted by at 6:24 PM on July 2
Rather, he attributed the delay in burial to the black funeral home director’s insistence that the county sign a letter guaranteeing payment. Ralston said that went against county policy, and instead contacted another funeral home to handle the arrangements.
In a nutshell, that is what happened. The black funeral director wanted special treatment. How pathetic.
Posted by at 7:38 PM on July 2
I have to say the Waller County Commissioners Court is in the wrong here. We are talking about a dead body that needs a proper burial. Had they simply signed the paperwork guaranteeing payment (which doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable request), the poor victim would have been put to rest and no further issues raised.
Posted by Aunt Bea at 8:03 PM on July 2
And to top it all off, the killer was probably B L A C K.
Posted by at 8:36 PM on July 2
I have to say the Waller County Commissioners Court is in the wrong here. We are talking about a dead body that needs a proper burial. Had they simply signed the paperwork guaranteeing payment (which doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable request), the poor victim would have been put to rest and no further issues raised.
Posted by Aunt Bea at 8:03 PM on July 2
I would have to agree here. The country should have just signed and had the deed done. To many counties simply don’t pay their bills and tie you up in court later, I know! it was done to me.
Posted by Skip at 2:03 AM on July 3
Sure, just caving in to the demands of blacks - special treatment etc - has been so effective all these years in improving race relations.
And blacks are so thankful to whites for this special treatment all these years, right?
Posted by at 10:27 AM on July 3
Apparently, now we can’t even rest in peace.
Make your preparations, bring in two other people that you can rely on. Once Barack Husein Obama becomes the Last American President (a good title for an historical documentary, in Chinese with English subtitles), this is what will happen (for those of you new to this site):
We will be hunted down and killed.
Got it? Good.
Posted by Wild Eyed Charlie at 11:07 AM on July 3
Y’see the blacks get it! They know that the two races don’t belong together. They spell it out for the rest of us time and again. They need to be removed from this country. I think that they’re doing themselves in though. I mean really, they’re all over the television screen, but they continue to screw up. I see it all the time at work, we have one black guy working among mostly caucasians and a few native americans, and everyone gets along with each other, except this guy. No one likes him, and vice versa. He brings everything on himself. They’re stripping themselves of a social status that has been given to their race rather prematurely. I love it!
Posted by LightningStriking at 12:28 PM on July 3
The NAACP, BET, black only colleges, La Raza…. this example - obviously, racism is fine in this country as long as it isn’t practiced by Whites.
Posted by Whiteplight at 1:20 PM on July 3
They can’t even decide a matter as simple as this. And “Diversity is our strength,” eh?
We are in the process of imploding and those who refuse to agree are hiding with their heads in the sand.
But that won’t stop the implosion.
Posted by ice at 3:18 PM on July 3
Aunt Bea, that is not the way business is conducted, especially with any dignity. If the black funeral director didn’t trust the county and didn’t want to do business with the county they simply needed to say so. Problem solved. The body would never have been transfered to them and no time would have been wasted. Instead they accept the body and then started some petty and unusual negotiations. That is highly undignified and unprofessional.
Moreover, county officials have there own procedures and contracts in place. If they deviate from those procedures and sign special contracts from all their vendors/suppliers it becomes a bureaucratic and legal nightmare. The county attorneys wont allow it.
Posted by at 4:34 PM on July 3
Sorry but I don’t buy it.
I’ve worked w/ the govt long enough to know no one contracts for ANYTHING without proper paperwork- why is seeking guarantee of payment such an issue? Based on my own personal experience, no one will conduct a burial without guarantee of payment. This is just more bureaucratic nonsense than anything else.
I don’t see this as a racial issue at all- at least it didn’t need to be.
Posted by Aunt Bea at 10:12 PM on July 3
Yet in neighboring Harris County, when a dead body must be picked up, a ”black body car” or ”white body car” is specifically requested, depending on the race of the deceased. And for those wondering, hispanics and asians are transported in the so-called ”white” body cars. Not sure why this is, unless its due to demographics and the fact that black body car=black funeral home=black area of town, in most instances.
Posted by at 5:19 PM on July 4