‘It Turns My Stomach’: Texas Man Faces Charges for Pretending to be Funeral Director to Steal Life Insurance Money from Grieving Families
Multiple Texas families say they fell victim to a life insurance scheme where a man pretended to be a funeral director to get their information.
Javian Major, who also posed as a mortician, is accused of operating an illegal funeral business in Houston and taking advantage of people who lost their loved ones, KPRC-TV reported. The 26-year-old’s alleged accomplice, 38-year-old Sandy Broussard, was charged with theft.
“Allegedly, the duo conspired to forge beneficiaries’ signatures, illicitly obtaining life insurance funds and stealing thousands. Some cases report the disappearance of loved ones’ remains,” Harris County Constable Precinct 1 said in a statement.
The office shared a video of victims calling for accountability and sharing their stories.
“Once he seen the policy was $20,000, he … signed my dad’s name and maxed out the policy,” one woman said at a news conference.
Rosen explained that Major told clients to give them insurance policy information, and when they did, he would forge the signatures, according to the report. That’s when he would scam them and collect the money.
In addition to the scheme, victims said that Major did not give their deceased loved ones a proper service, including failing to embalm their bodies correctly.
“When I walked in and I looked at my son, his body was bloated. He was dark,” another woman at the news conference recalled. “I had to run out the church because I couldn’t deal with the smell.”
He would reportedly hook his victims not only by impersonating a funeral director but sometimes also by claiming he’s a close friend of the person who died. One victim described him as a “good talker.”
Another person alleged: “He got a suit on. He looking real nice, you know, he’s like, ‘Oh, this is my business card,’ like, he got it all planned out just like a scammer does,” per the outlet.
The charges against Major and Broussard came after the Texas Funeral Service Commission referred officials to look into the case. Although the duo is out on bond, an investigation into the allegations is underway.
“It turns my stomach because you’re dealing with people at the most vulnerable time of their lives after they’ve lost somebody that they loved and cared for,” said the constable.