(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); I understand I have had little to do with the site in the past couple years but I am desperate for help. *I am asking for any help and assistance with funeral cost for my mother who passed away on February 6th.

She suffered an injury that led to her being admitted to the emergency room. *After several hours she came back home. *She seemed fine besides the pain she was experiencing. *At about 10:30 she decided she wanted to lay down and go to sleep. *My father and i watched over her until about 3 before we fell asleep. *When we woke at about 6, we found my mother had passed.

My mother meant the world to me, I don't have much family, I don't have a lot of friends and I feel as though I've been stripped a piece of my soul.

I am asking for anyone who can help donate to help with however much they can. *If you can't donate, please at the very least share this cause with others.

In the GoFundMe, you will see my father (A former middle-school teacher), my mother, me, my 8 year old brother and my two sisters.

Please, please do help.

You must login or register to view this content.

_____________________

For those of you who have asked for a death certificate, this is the working copy version that they had given: You must login or register to view this content.


Official ones will be coming soon. We've decided to go with cremation and an urn and to hold our own memorial for her among the few family we have left.

I've adjusted the GoFundMe to the amount that was due, I've had to put the amount we owed on credit under my name. I will be leaving the GoFundMe open until the end of the month and then I will be closing it for donations.

To all of those who have helped donate and to all of those I have talked to, I thank you for your generosity and help, your kind words have helped make a difficult time my father and I have been going through easier to handle.

Well, there shouldn't be any dispute since all the property to be disputed was common property between my father and my mom. Any separate property was primarily my fathers (like 99%). The only dispute that should be going on is any separate property of my moms, which is very few. The property that my mom had at the home where they are wiping things out is property that was removed from my father's home in violation of a court order, as well as property that had been removed during months in which neither my mom nor sisters had any legal right to enter my father's home (my father got awarded his home in the divorce process as being only his due to it being an inheritance). My sisters were breaking into our home for months (We dealt with the police so fucking much it reached a point where they couldn't figure out how they were breaking in either...)

They stole stuff from our home and took over there, over 100k worth of stuff that they are making off with and acting as though it is theirs. Tomorrow, we are going to start calling again for a probate attorney to handle this issue and to begin a civil suit against my sisters and also name other members of the family and friends of my sister who may have assisted with the theft of said property. Whole process will probably cost us about 20k in the end. :/

Funny, one of the sisters; I talked with the detective handling the case with my mom and he stated that the reason that my local police department didn't go after my sister for identity theft and check fraud (forgery) (45+ counts and over 8,000 cash stolen from my dad) is that "Because it's family who is committing a crime against family, a jury won't go for prosecution so we dropped it"...

Fucking hell, my father's divorce attorney laughed at the fact that she put her daughter in jail for a few months for forging about 20 checks in her name to teach her a life lesson. My city is fucking bullshit. What my sister has done though is one of several things and of one of these several, had they gone for prosecution, likely none of this shit we are dealing with would have happened... :/

___________________________

Really though, just tired. It's 12:11 AM and we're not done going through photos. We are stuck on about 150 photos to knock down to about 100. Going through photos from right when I was born all the way up to now really brings back a lot of good memories but also makes it more difficult because it brings up the fact that I won't see my mother ever again, that it reassures my mortality, and that I have to come to the realization that I basically don't have any family and that if anything were to happen to my brother and dad, I'm basically alone in this world. :/

Trying to keep my mind occupied though, the more occupied, the better I can handle and think. When I stop thinking, I then go into a depressive cycle of thinking.

My father has been taking this extremely badly, he has health issues which doesn't help but been getting him to eat again and bought him new equipment for his CPAP. Hoping he stops passing out. :/

I understand, I'm the same way when it comes to this. I offered as much as I could to show what I am dealing with is real, if I had more I would show more. There are a lot of people of the internet who fraudulently try and collect free cash... There is another campaign by my sister's friend for my mom, has about 1k donated. I asked my sisters about it and they have no plans for the money to to help my father pay for memorial and services... They stated, and I quote "The money is to help us live and pay for rent"... (I've tried to contact GoFundMe but they have yet to respond to me... :/)

...This is the type people they are my family is... they want us to hold a massive funeral service and pay for it all ourselves, decided that if we could raise enough money we'd do it just so everyone gets some sort of closure in their own way but with how they are acting and have acted, we've changed things.

Basically, going to just be a more private gathering, costs are about half (4-6k). We're going to let the rest of the family deal with how they want to deal with things their way, we couldn't care less about them at this point with how they have disrespected my mom, her name, and how they have treated and disrespected us and stolen from us.

____________

To those who have donated and to those who have PMd me, I thank you. You all have helped with me getting through this difficult time. When a death certificate is released though, I will provide a copy.

Was going to write "get an attorney ASAP" but sounds like you're already on that. A lot of folks file their own complaints without attorneys, and sometimes that's fine. But you've made it sound like the family you'd be suing would be able to afford an attorney, possibly a pretty good one, and no matter how much the law is on your side, any competent attorney could destroy a complaint filed by non-attorneys. So as long as you're already aware of your need for an attorney to represent you (my strong, strong advice given that it sounds like your family will most likely have their own attorney), just some advice I would give you on how to deal with the probate attorney: One, get a clear sense of billing up front. Will the attorney charge by the hour, or is it a flat fee for the matter, or is it something in between? This should all be spelled out in the retainer agreement, but it will be in Lawyer, not English, so have the lawyer break it down for you. Same goes for things like who pays filing fees, transportation to and from court, other small things like that -- but those should be minor compared to the lawyer's rates. Two: if it's not a flat fee (and it probably won't be), get the attorney to estimate how much it could cost based on the attorney's experience. Then ask the lawyer to have that amount (or any other amount you're comfortable with) be a "ceiling" on the lawyer's costs. Understand it's very possible the lawyer will reach that ceiling and pass it, and that it might be necessary to do so (also understand that if an appeal is not built into the first estimate, because your family might lose but then appeal the case to a higher court, then the appeal alone would cost more and kill the ceiling -- but appeals usually cost a WHOLE lot less than the trials themselves). Ask the lawyer up front to communicate with you if the lawyer approaches that ceiling -- and if the lawyer says he/she is approaching it, you can decide if you want the lawyer to scale back his/her efforts a bit, especially if it seems like things are going your way anyway. Three, establish up front that asking about things like "how much have you billed" or any other discussions between you and the attorney regarding costs and billing, that that time is NOT billable time, you are not charged for it. That part is actually a given anyway: lawyers are not allowed to charge for that in any state that I know of, but some lawyers still do it without actually telling their clients becuase their clients don't know any better and some lawyers are just plain hungry.

Also, about the police not actually doing anything with your sister that could have prevented this, I have a bit of advice that may or may not have anything to it. It will be up to you whether or not you want to pursue this, but you may have a legal claim there. Understand up front that while as you know I am a lawyer, I am NOT admitted to California and cannot opine on California law. (Even if I could, I don't know anyhing about this type of law -- I don't even know how to get out of a traffic ticket to be honest.) Second, me giving you this information and possible advice in NO way creates an attorney/client relationship -- I'm just a friend advising you of a claim you may or may not have. (Sorry, I know that sounds formal, but I'm required to say that, and for good reason too.)

The type of claim, if I recall, would be called a section 1983, but I might be wrong on that. You'd be suing the police department and the city or county, whoever operates the police department in question. In legal terms it essentially means that acting under color of state law, they deprived you and your father and brother (and mother) of due process, leading to the injury of the loss of your mother and all the attendant financial and emotional harm. In English it means this: The police are supposed to be the police and do police-type things. Because they didn't, your sister continued her ways, and maybe if the police didn't laugh things off, maybe if the police took things seriously and actually did their job, things would be different today. (The actual complaint would not have the words "maybe" in it because that would weaken it. I'm only including the maybe becuase I'm realistic, and who knows what could have happened.) Losing your mother has hurt all of you financially, emotionally, and you would also make very sympathetic victims to any jury, particularly your brother. The police never make sympathetic figures to juries. Now, your probate attorney would not handle this case; this is for a different type of lawyer, a torts lawyer (negligence lawyer). The lawyer should also throw on a "wrongful death" claim. The 1983 claim (if that's what it is, I forget -- 1983 might just be against individuals like police officers, not entities like police departments) is a federal claim, while wrongful death is state, but you'd probably be bringing it in state court because plaintiffs usually do better there when companies or the government is being sued. You might not win if you go to trial, or you might, I honestly don't know -- but the city/county would likely want to settle the case before it even gets to trial (if there IS a case -- that's for a California lawyer to decide, NOT me). A settlement, or a victory in court, could help you all out immensely. And seriously, they SHOULD have done their jobs. It makes me mad that they didn't. My strong advice would be to at least speak to a torts/negligence lawyer for a consultation, maybe 2 diffferent lawyers, to get their opinion. Any consultation would be free.

But know this: While it MIGHT net you a settlement, or a victory at trial, IF there's actually a case there (again, to stress, I do not know), what I CAN say for sure is this: Any trial, but especially a trial like that, would be long, difficult, and emotionally exhausting. And you would not feel any better at the end. There is no healing, no closure, brought from a court case. It can bring money but nothing else, so don't expect more. The sole purpose would be to help your family financially, and to a lesser extent to put the police on notice that they should probably do a better job in the future -- But it'll be pretty rough on you. Same goes for the probate trial. I owe you a message on another topic too -- been a bit out of sorts this past week. Hope you've been as well as the circumstances can allow.

Abv. prepared.

I included a working copy of the death certificate. At the end of the month I will be closing the GoFundMe. Thank you for all your help.

Whenever I do end up getting money, as I've been through the same place, kinda. Never knew my dad, and then he died when I was only 12 years old so I never even knew who he was and my mom won't even show me a picture of him. I'll be donating $20-$50. I believe you're telling the truth. And if you are just a scammer, then you're just going on low levels to receive money.

i was about say this

My father is/was a middle school teacher. He's now on disability leave. My mother was a paraprofessional at a school for autistic children. She was not a teacher, held no degrees. She was more or less, an assistance to a teacher.

Also, at the end of today, I will be closing the GoFundMe as my father and I will be picking up the urn here in about 45 minutes.

To all of those who have donated and to all of those who have talked with me and helped me get through this difficult time, I thank you. Words cannot express how much I appreciate all of your help.

Thank you.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to donate. I'm a minor and have no method of income. However, I wanted to give you my deepest condolences and best wishes in the future. I hope you are able to find closure with your family and everyone gets what they deserve. If you ever need anything, feel free to Private Message me. I've never dealt with death to a very close person I've known, but I know that it hurts to have someone ripped from your life that you've relied on for your whole life. And, even worse, it was because of someone else who made a selfish mistake. I hope everything goes well with your court case and you get the resolution and compromise that you are looking for.

Best wishes, Michael