Funerals

She raced to the hearse as it pulled up to Our Lady of Victory Church just after 10 a.m. Saturday and opened the vehicle's back door. For a moment, it was as if 29-year-old Rory Kennedy planned single-handedly to carry her brother Michael's heavy mahogany coffin into the gray and white church where, for years, the Kennedy family has worshiped in the happy days of summer. But just as swiftly, the youngest of Robert F.

Hundreds of family members, friends and supporters attended a funeral service Saturday for Kendrec "Mac" McDade, a 19-year-old college student who was unarmed when he was shot and killed by two Pasadena police officers. About 400 people trickled inside the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Altadena to pay tribute to the Citrus College student, whose family has filed wrongful death and civil rights complaints against the city. The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Assn.

Lamar Odom's voice on the phone frequently was barely above a whisper. The pain clearly registered in words that flowed in stops and starts as he delivered a soliloquy about death and the effect it has had on his psyche. The Lakers forward spoke deliberately and expressed how emotional it has been for him to deal with two recent deaths. Odom attended a funeral in New York on July 13 for his 24-year-old cousin, who Odom said was murdered. The next day, Odom was a passenger in an SUV in Queens when it collided with a motorcycle.

The three surviving Monkees aren't planning to attend Davy Jones' funeral because it would likely bring too much unwanted attention to his family during their time of grief, the group's Micky Dolenz said Tuesday. He and fellow Monkees Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith have talked of attending one of the memorials that Jones' family is planning to hold in New York and in the late singer's native England, Dolenz said. And he added he's considering organizing a memorial himself for Jones' friends in Los Angeles.

The poor economy is taking a toll even on the dead, with an increasing number of bodies in Los Angeles County going unclaimed by families who cannot afford to bury or cremate their loved ones. At the county coroner's office -- which handles homicides and other suspicious deaths -- 36% more cremations were done at taxpayers' expense in the last fiscal year over the previous year, from 525 to 712.

More than 3,000 law enforcement officers, family members, friends and community residents packed the grounds of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in La Quinta on Monday to honor the memory of Riverside County Sheriff's Deputy Bruce Lee, who was killed last week while responding to a domestic violence call. "He gave up his tomorrows so we can have safer todays," state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer told mourners during a 90-minute service. "Bruce's service and sacrifice will never be forgotten."

Catching his breath every few moments, Jim Adenhart explained to the hushed crowd that the greatest day of his life was when his nine-pound, three-ounce baby boy was born. Then, in detail, he relayed his final conversation with his son last week, after Nick Adenhart had pitched the best game of his brief major league career.

As 500 mourners faced a row of caskets at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, seven members of a family of Armenian immigrants were buried Friday while the eighth was in a county jail cell on charges of murdering them. Six times the names of the dead were spoken in Armenian and English as a part of the funeral service. And six times a wave of sobbing rolled through the cemetery's Hall of Liberty as the roll call of grief progressed.

Family and friends of Teak Dyer had planned to gather Friday to celebrate the popular teen-ager's graduation from Palisades High School. Instead, as the sunshine broke through the coastal fog and shimmered on serene Lake Shrine at the Self Realization Fellowship Friday, mourners held hands, cried and remembered with love and pain the brief life of the exuberant young girl who was murdered Wednesday. "She was excited about the future. She wanted to make her life really count.

As 200-mph tornado winds bore down on the Joplin Home Depot near here a week ago, the floor manager ordered customers and employees into the back of the store. At the last minute, though, desperate people still in the parking lot were trying to find a way in. "There were people tapping at the door," branch manager Steve Cope said. Electrical department manager M. Dean Wells let them in, herded them back toward a safer area, then helped others in, about a dozen in all. He was near the front of the store when a massive, prefabricated concrete wall collapsed on him and on a father and two young girls whom Wells had just ushered in. Photos: Tornadoes plague Midwest By the time it was over, the bulk of the massive warehouse was little more than a pile of twisted metal and concrete.

As hundreds of mourners gathered at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Saturday, Joanna Ramos' grieving mother fought back tears and said she would always remember her 10-year-old daughter as a "good and happy little girl who dreamed of being a singer and a star. " "What happened to Joanna could happen to anybody," Cecilia Villanueva, 41, said before the service. "Parents need to be careful and try to watch over their children, even when they are at school with friends. " Relatives, friends and strangers assembled at the cemetery's chapel for a funeral service to honor the fifth-grader, who died after a fight with a classmate near their elementary school in Long Beach.

Stan Stearns, 76, who took the iconic photograph of John F. KennedyJr. saluting his father's coffin during the slain president's 1963 funeral, died Friday of cancer at a hospice in Harwood, Md., said his son Jay. As a photographer for United Press International, Stearns was assigned to cover John F. Kennedy's funeral on Nov. 25, 1963. He was standing outside a Washington cathedral with about 70 photographers when he saw Jacqueline Kennedy lean down to whisper to her son, who turned 3 that day. The boy then stepped forward as the flag-draped coffin rolled by. "His hand went up, it went down; one exposure, that's all I got," Stearns told the Baltimore Sun in 1999.

The National Enquirer's photo of the late Whitney Houston in her casket was unauthorized and had nothing to do with the funeral home where the singer's body was prepared, the funeral home's owner told The Times on Thursday. Outrage has followed the publication of the photo in the latest issue of the Enquirer, as have questions about how it was obtained. That has cast suspicion on Whigham Funeral Home in Newark, N.J., but owner Carolyn Whigham insisted that the funeral home did not play a role.

Thousands of mourners braved a snowstorm and heavy security presence to march Saturday through a strategic Damascus neighborhood, turning a funeral procession into a bold opposition statement in a Syrian capital that has remained largely loyal to President Bashar Assad. The march, in the upscale Mezzeh district, started out peacefully but turned violent, opposition activists said, as security men unleashed barrages of live rounds. At least one person was reported killed and several injured, though there was no official confirmation.

Three hours before Whitney Houston's funeral was to begin Saturday, about three dozen fans gathered at a corner four blocks up the street from the New Hope Baptist Church, the closest police permitted them to be. Catherine Graham Ross peered through a pair of opera glasses toward the church at the flashing lights of police cars, past metal barricades and yellow police ropes, and said she understood the need to keep people back. "They're hurting and they need their time," she said, referring to Houston's family.

Whitney Houston 's funeral, described as a "home going celebration," is unfolding in her childhood church with gospel tributes and eulogies from celebrities, including Kevin Costner , who described her as “beautiful as a woman could be.” Gospel singer BeBe Winans said he would miss "crazy Whitney. " And Alicia Keys sang “Send Me An Angel” after telling how her friend Whitney made her and other artists feel “strong and capable and loved.” The private funeral, broadcast live online from New Hope Baptist Church, brought out thousands of family members, friends and fans to the church on what started as a gray, drizzly day. PHOTOS: Whitney Houston's funeral Amid the tears and mournful remarks from Newark Mayor Corey Booker and filmmaker Tyler Perry , there were moments of comedy.

Tens of thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets Monday in Iran's main theological center and clashed with pro-government militiamen during the funeral of the country's top dissident cleric, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. The demonstration in the city of Qom was significant both for its important location and its merging of several currents in Iran's population: It drew older supporters of Montazeri from smaller cities and towns in the countryside as well as young middle-class urbanites from the capital.

Residents of Jarrell faced a sad schedule: travel to Georgetown, 14 miles away, to attend three funerals, one after another, for 10 former neighbors killed by Tuesday's tornado. At the Georgetown Church of the Nazarene they remembered Vicki Kehl Taylor, 36, and her 16-year-old son, Johnathan Lyle Kehl.

In a hometown funeral service that resonated with gospel hymns and preaching that “brought the world to church,” Whitney Houston was remembered Saturday for her beauty, vulnerabilities -- and her powerful gift of voice. As Whitney Houston's private funeral unfolded Saturday full of passionate eulogies, some poignant and some humorous, it became clear it was a service steeped in spirituality. New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J., was filled to capacity with celebrities, family and friends for what was described as “home going celebration.” Outside, dozens of fans had gathered in the early morning hours to say farewell, but were kept several blocks away and when the service began most quietly left, perhaps to watch a live video stream of the event on a computer or television.

PHOTOS: Whitney Houston 's funeral - (goes after 3rd graf)   FULL COVERAGE: Whitney Houston's death - (goes after 6th graf)   ALSO: Houston funeral: Who's performing and speaking? Outside Whitney Houston's funeral: 'We're hurting too' Whitney Houston's mother says, 'Rest, my baby girl, in peace'