According to new information, Uvalde shooter Salvador Ramos’ corpse was left unclaimed for weeks because no funeral houses would take him and his family was “fighting” over what to do.
On May 24, 18-year-old Ramos killed 19 youngsters and two instructors in the tiny Texas hamlet.
Following the shooting, Rushing-Estes-Knowles and Hillcrest Memorial, the town’s two funeral homes, were very busy attending to the funerals of the victims.
Additionally, they did not want to subject the relatives of the victims to additional suffering by publicly receiving the gunman’s corpse.
Taylor Michelle Massey, managing funeral director of Rushing-Estes-Knowles, stated, “All of our employees grew up and went to school in Uvalde County and think that everyone deserves a proper and respectful burial ceremony.”
The Houston Chronicle quoted her as saying, “However, in the weeks after the killings on May 24th, we were caring for 17 families through what is perhaps the most terrible period of their life.”
We did not believe that taking possession of the remains of the person who caused the families we were caring for would be acceptable or in their best interests given the circumstances.
Ramos’ remains underwent an autopsy on May 27, three days after he was shot and killed by police during the assault, according to Eulalio “Lalo” Diaz Jr., a Uvalde County judge of the peace who also acts as the de facto coroner.
The corpse was subsequently turned over to Diaz to attempt to dispose of.
The local funeral houses told them they didn’t want to deal with him after they arrived at the scene, he said.
They wouldn’t let the body be kept, so Diaz had to search for a mortuary quickly and managed to work out a deal with a facility in Lockhart, which was 165 miles away.
Diaz remarked, “I had to store him for three weeks.”
I was still debating what to do with him while the funerals for the victims continued. It was a difficult moment.
In the meanwhile, Ramos’ family couldn’t agree on what to do.
Before assaulting the school, the kid shot his 66-year-old maternal grandma Celia Martinez Gonzales in the face. Gonzales managed to live and was hospitalised until June.
Despite the arguments, Ramos was cremated at Crown Cremation Center, 85 kilometres outside Uvalde and on the western border of downtown San Antonio.
Ramos’ burial preparations were handled by Castle Ridge in Crystal City, 40 miles south of Uvalde, according to Diaz.
The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s completion of the autopsy findings for Ramos and his 21 victims might take up to a year, Diaz told the Chronicle.