"It is very heartbreaking:" Cemetery offers to cover costs of plot, burial services for Bill Thao



MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- It is a task no parent wants to face: burying a child. As 13-month-old Bill Thao's family prepares to lay him to rest, a Milwaukee cemetery is stepping up, hoping to help ease their burden.

Bill Thao



Bill Thao lost his life after shots were fired into a home near 73rd and Mill on Saturday night, December 27th. He died at the hospital.

Pinelawn Memorial Park will be the baby boy's final resting place.

"I am sure they are taking it minute by minute, and it is very heartbreaking for them," Christine Toson Hentges, the cemetery president said of the Thao family.

Hentges contacted Bill Thao's family, offering to cover the costs of the plot and burial services.

"Especially when it's such a death. There is no merit behind all of it," Hentges said.

The family has chosen a space that is large enough for other family members to be laid to rest around the baby later on. Bill Thao will be buried in the center of the plot.

This is not the first time Pinelawn Memorial Park has worked with the families of children whose lives have been claimed by gun violence. They helped with the costs of burial services for 10-year-old Sierra Guyton. She was shot while playing on a Milwaukee playground in May. She died at the hospital in July.

"She`s in a beautiful resting place right now," Hentges said.

In these tragic cases, Hentges says she feels compelled to help.

"It's just random. It's just senseless," Hentges said.

Hentges says the family is working on finding a funeral home. She says a date for the funeral hasn't yet been set.

Bill Thao was the youngest of two children. No one has been arrested in connection with the shooting that took his life.

Police are asking for the public’s assistance in finding the person or persons responsible for the shooting that killed Bill Thao. Anyone with information is asked to call police at (414) 935-7360.

CLICK HERE to access a Go Fund Me page established by Bill Thao's family.

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