Funeral home owner felt ‘caught’ by brutal obituary
A funeral home owner in Texas is speaking out after he made the decision to post a scathing obituary written by a deceased man’s daughter.
When Leslie Ray Charping died last month at the age of 74, his daughter Sheila Smith penned a brutally honest assessment of his life. The original obit posted via Carnes Funeral Home quickly went viral before traffic eventually crashed the host website.
Here’s the text, in full, of the remembrance:
— Leslie Ray “Popeye” Charping was born in Galveston on November 20, 1942 and passed away January 30, 2017, which was 29 years longer than expected and much longer than he deserved. Leslie battled with cancer in his latter years and lost his battle, ultimately due to being the horses a** he was known for. He leaves behind 2 relieved children; a son Leslie Roy Charping and daughter, Shiela Smith along with six grandchildren and countless other victims including an ex wife, relatives, friends, neighbors, doctors, nurses and random strangers.
At a young age, Leslie quickly became a model example of bad parenting combined with mental illness and a complete commitment to drinking, drugs, womanizing and being generally offensive. Leslie enlisted to serve in the Navy, but not so much in a brave & patriotic way but more as part of a plea deal to escape sentencing on criminal charges. While enlisted, Leslie was the Navy boxing champion and went on to sufficiently embarrass his family and country by spending the remainder of his service in the Balboa Mental Health Hospital receiving much needed mental healthcare services.
Leslie was surprisingly intelligent, however he lacked ambition and motivation to do anything more than being reckless, wasteful, squandering the family savings and fantasizing about get rich quick schemes. Leslie’s hobbies included being abusive to his family, expediting trips to heaven for the beloved family pets and fishing, which he was less skilled with than the previously mentioned. Leslie’s life served no other obvious purpose, he did not contribute to society or serve his community and he possessed no redeeming qualities besides quick whited sarcasm which was amusing during his sober days.
With Leslie’s passing he will be missed only for what he never did; being a loving husband, father and good friend. No services will be held, there will be no prayers for eternal peace and no apologies to the family he tortured. Leslie’s remains will be cremated and kept in the barn until “Ray”, the family donkey’s wood shavings run out. Leslie’s passing proves that evil does in fact die and hopefully marks a time of healing and safety for all. —
News station KTRK reached out to Smith after the obit went viral and she expressed no regret about what she had to say in regards to her late father. “I told the truth. I am not sorry for telling the truth, and I am not sorry for standing up for myself,” she said adding, “For someone that knew him and family members that knew him and to see something on there that was a complete lie would’ve been an insult to everyone that he did bad things to.”
The Washington Post reached out to Jay Carnes, the owner of Carnes Funeral Home, who acknowledged that he was in a tough spot in regards to being asked to publish the piece. “I was kind of caught. You want to do the right thing. You want to help the family out at the same time. I don’t know. I was just caught.”
Carnes decided to take the post down after all kinds of harsh comments and spam poured in to his site. By this time, however, the complete text of the obituary for Leslie Ray Charping was part of recorded internet history.
Smith opined, “When you don’t talk about it and you don’t acknowledge the problem even exists, it just grow. It’s not going to stop until people say, ‘this is a problem’ and they talk about it.”