Funds for funeral still short

The money that should have gone to Carrie Russell’s mortgage payment went instead to a funeral home for a down payment on her grandson’s cremation.

Her $450 covers less than half the $1,245 cost of putting to rest Marcus Watts. Then there’s the cost of flowers, funeral programs, November bills and Christmas for the 18-year-old homicide victim’s three younger sisters and three toddler-age children.

“It’s taking everything I got,” Carrie Russell said of final arrangements for the grandson she helped raise.

Watts was shot to death early Oct. 24 near Miller Park at 28th and Kansas Avenues. Omaha police have made no arrests.

Russell and Shanetra Watts, Marcus’ mother, had hoped to bury the young man but didn’t have the money to cover one funeral home’s $5,000 cost.

So young Watts’ body rested in the Douglas County Health Center’s morgue as family members scrambled to come up with the funds.

Neither woman wanted to ask for outside help. Russell tried to tap a $2,000 life insurance policy she had on her grandson.

Finally, Watts, who works a full-time job as a home-health nursing assistant, held a press conference to announce that a bank fund would accept contributions.

A World-Herald article Monday prompted two funeral homes to offer discounted rates. An Omaha woman called the newspaper, offering her family’s burial plot. Two people called to offer funds and one person sent $25.

But none of it was enough. Russell’s insurance company is balking at paying the full $2,000 (she had doubled the coverage amount in January and said she’s being told that’s not enough time for her to collect the full amount). The bank fund had netted $228 as of Wednesday afternoon.

The young man’s body had waited so long in the morgue refrigerator that by the time Chapel of Memories offered to help, it was too late to consider the visitation the family wanted.

Now his body is at a crematorium.

One church offered to host a memorial service at no cost. The funeral for Marcus Watts will be held at 2 p.m. Friday at World Fellowship Christian Center, 3020 Huntington Ave.

City Councilman Ben Gray said he’d help provide some food after the service. Jannette Taylor, executive director of Impact One, a north Omaha-based nonprofit aimed at reducing gun violence, said her group will chip in to cover whatever funeral costs the family can’t meet.

The family’s struggle is all too familiar, said Sherry Murray who works in social services for Douglas County and helps conduct burials.

“It’s very expensive,” Murray said, “and most people don’t have any idea until it hits home.”