Family of 19-year-old man killed in robbery wanted his hair as a memento, but says funeral home lost it

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) – The grieving family of a 19-year-old Texas man killed in a robbery is frustrated at the funeral home that they say he lost some of the hair they wanted as a memento .

Kenneth Thomas, 19, was killed Aug. 26 during a robbery in Houston’s Fifth Ward. Following his death, family members say they asked Oasis Funeral and Cremation in Aldine to preserve his hair before cremation.

“It was very heartbreaking because it was traumatic. The way he died was not necessary,” said Lakisha Johnson, Thomas’ cousin.

Kenneth Thomas, 19, was killed during a robbery in Houston. Family members say they wanted to... — Kenneth Thomas, 19, was killed during a robbery in Houston. Family members say they wanted to keep some of her hair, but the funeral home lost it.(Source: Family document, KTRK via CNN)

The family says Thomas’ hair was styled with wicks at the time of his death. Some of his relatives, including his twin, planned to braid his hair into theirs.

“It will never die. As long as we’re here, he’ll be alive,” said Anastasia Kindle, Thomas’ cousin.

A few weeks after the funeral, the family received a bag of hair, but they say they realized almost immediately that it wasn’t Thomas’s. They say they were very familiar with the 19-year-old’s hair 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. It’s not fair at the end of the day.”

Tanya Roberson, the owner of the funeral home, admitted that the family received someone else’s hair and says she can’t find Thomas.

Because of the incident, the family questioned whether the ashes were given to the correct person.

“It makes us question everything, even his ashes,” Johnson said. “Is he really in this urn? We need to know that. Because if he’s not in the ballot box, who is?

Roberson says she cut Thomas’ hair herself, so she knows it was done. She says she recently had construction work at her facility and believes the hair was displaced during that time. She says she’s still looking for him.

“I take responsibility for the problem that happened. Yes. No matter how hard you try to make everything perfect, sometimes things still slip through the cracks,” Roberson said.

As for the family’s concern about the ashes, she says there is no doubt they are Thomas’s.