
Marilyn is a member of the staff of the Khadafy Washington Project (KWP), named for her lost son. KWP crisis responders support survivors of homicide victims in Oakland in the immediate aftermath of a killing. It’s a great program but with a small staff, and at the outset of 2025, it was hit with ill health, right as Oakland was being hit with a rash of killings. There were seven homicides between December 30th and January 3rd. There have been more shootings and killings since then, including one this past Wednesday. But at the beginning of the year, several crisis responders went down with various winter ailments. Marilyn had been sick in December, but by January she was feeling better, and was one of the few KWP crisis responders left standing.
With this explosion of violence and death in the new year, she was assigned to support multiple families simultaneously, with assistance applying for crucial victim compensation, funeral planning, and overall guidance in trying to survive the first wave of profound shock and trauma that come after learning the news of your loved-one’s violent death. There is so much business to take care of. I asked Marilyn how she handled so many cases at once and she said that she just had a sheet of paper for each family and put them in front of her every day and went down the list and did what needed to be done. But I know it is more than that.
One mother had to come to Oakland from out of town, to apply for victim compensation and make arrangements for her son. A few days after finishing her application, she contacted Marilyn. She said, “I’m not leaving until I see my baby.” She wanted to see him and spend time with him before he was embalmed. Technically, such a visitation is called an “ID.” Most mortuaries charge families for this so-called privilege. Marilyn says these days the cost is $300. It used to be $100, she told me. “To go in the room and sit here, before they embalm them,” she lamented. Seems like people will try to make money an old way they can these days.
Still, Marilyn was able to arrange this sad visitation for the mother. She told me that the mortuary where this young man was does a very nice job of preparing the body for his mother’s viewing.
“What they do for all IDs", she said, "is they take brand new sheets and wrap them like you wrap a baby, from shoulder to shoulder, you can’t see, you can’t see their arms, you can’t see their feet, you can’t see anything but their head. And so when the mother comes in, that’s all she’s interested in, is that my baby’s head is not blown open, his neck is okay. That’s what a mother’s really interested in: is he able to be viewed. They never say it, but I know that’s what I wanted. And so she’s going today at three o’clock. I asked Tori at the mortuary, How does he look, and she said he looks very good, he looks like he’s asleep.”
And so, like in the beginning, at the end, the sleeping child is swaddled and alone with his mother. In this case, according to Marilyn, the victim was 30 years old.
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