Thank you for listening to Pictures Media Radio. Welcome to Policy and Rights,
the show about governor policy and human rights. Welcome back everyone. Many of
us have seen The Burial by now. It is a legal drama directed by
Maggie Betts, written and co written by Maggie Betts and Doug Wright. And
it is a legal drama based on the lawyer Willie E. Gary as he
defended or at least represented Jeremiah Joseph O'Keefe in a lawsuit against the Loewen Group,
a funeral company that, as shown in the in the movie, was
less than ethical. It starred, of course Timy Lee Jones and Jamie Fox
Fox who played Gary uh the outstanding lawyer who who won the case for Jeremiah
o'keeith, who was played by Tommy Lee Jones. And it was a pretty
good movie. I found it very entertaining and I thought and I also found
it inspirational for those who want to stand up for their rights and stand up
against some of the corporate greed that may be happening in our world, and
and also on the human rights. And it represented a lot of what it
means to actually have civil rights and racial equality in our society. So it
was. It was a really good film, and I, like I said,
I enjoyed it. But I had the occasion to have someone introduce me
to Jeff O'Keefe, the son of Jeremiah. As we know, Jeremiah has
since passed on and the O'Keefe family has been in Biloxi, Mississippi for over
one hundred and sixty years at this point, so I thought it was a
great opportunity to find out some of the background behind the burial. And of
course, like any other Hollywood movie, there are some liberties, some story
writing things to make sure that we drive the point home about who the hero
is versus who the villain is. So I also had the opportunity to ask
Jeff about some of that background, and well, why don't we listen to
that conversation now as we have it right here, to hear Jeff's opinions on
what he thought of the movie and some background about what actually happened, because
this is a lawsuit, and lawsuits just don't happen over a matter of a
couple months. They take years of evidence generation, background checks, all sorts
of stuff. That well, it makes for a boring movie if you include
all that stuff, and it makes it more exciting if you only focus on
Hey, they're in court and they banter back and forth, right, so
why don't we listen to what Jeff had to say in h my conversation with
him. He's a really nice and and community driven man and willing to talk
about his father's achievements. The primary thing you want to talk about a little
bit of a movie and so forth, is that, right? Yeah,
I want and I wanted to take a different, different angle on on the
movie with something that was brought up over the idea of a big thing in
North America now is corporate greed, you know, where the corporations are just
trying to take more than their fair share. And it was something that was
brought up in a movie that the whole trouble became when they wanted to wait
your dad out and until he went bankrupt and then and then just take take
over the business right by it from from bankruptcy. So yeah, well it
was a very complex situation all the way and really just a sequence of events
that were uncanny the way it all just you know, I guess, unfold
folded. But yeah, it's it's it's a round. A long story,
but but one thing was prevalent was that low And seemed to be fixated on
acquiring funeral homes, you know, And so the conflict that we had with
uh, you know, the loew And group, we were trying to resolve,
but the primary methodology of resolution that they were insisting upon was buying some
of our summer all of our funeral homes as a resolution. And of course
initially none of those were for sale, and so that's where some of those
discrepancies, you know, arose. And then as the situation progressed, there
was a secondary point in time then, I mean, I meaning even after
the lawsuit was filed, you know, because it didn't appear as though they
were going to honor my father's original agreement to produce insurance into his companies and
which he had a contract for the funeral homes that they purchased to do that.
So he had no choice but to you know, file a dispute about
that. But later in the sequence of time, there was an effort to
settle that matter, and we did engage in a settlement agreement that involved transitioning
three of our funeral homes that were off the Coast three, uh, you
know, with part of the settlement agreement, and and it also involved an
insurance company transaction. But then that that settlement agreement also was unrealized, and
basically they were stalling on settling that and and there was an issue going on
with the insurance department at that time, and so they were kind of under
the impression that something ominous may happen to our company and then they could swoop
in and pick up the pieces. And so, you know that that element
of the movie was correct. I mean, it wasn't necessarily a financial detriment
as it was really a misunderstanding between the insurance department and uh and our you
know, our situ our position, right, So so they weren't going to
actually honor the part of the agreement that said that they would buy the insurance
back from your father's company. Yeah, well, let me explain that.
You know, my father, you know, he acquired little insurance companies all
throughout the state. And and then also there were a lot of little burial
insurance companies in the southeast quadrant of the United States, and those were formed
back in the depression days, and so there were limited, you know limits
that somebody could write three hundred or five hundred dollars. But as inflation increased,
there was a need to have a lord policy, you know, one
thousand dollars or five thousand. But to do that you had to form a
legal reserve company, and there was only one in the state of Mississippi at
the time, and you had to put up maybe one hundred thousand dollars as
a s grow to guarantee the payment of those claims. And so my father
and mother formed a company to do just that, and then they went around
to these other funeral homes that had these limits and said, look, when
you hit that, you know, you write your insurance. But then when
you need that next level policy, you know, write it with us if
you will, you know. And so at one point my dad had about
one hundred different funeral homes producing into his company and throughout the state, both
black and white. And so the company grew, and I said, see,
eventually it owned a string of mortgage companies and a string of finance news,
etc. And so he was operating that into the business. And so
with one of those companies that he acquired was in with the largest singular funeral
home in Mississippi was writing Ferguson, and so he had an agreement that when
he bought their insurance company, that they would continue to produce policies into his
company as part of the purchase price. And so they had a contract for
that to happen, and that had been ratified like two times, you know,
in other words, that it might have been a ten year contract,
and then it was renewed for another ten years, and then he was in
his third quadrant of renewals when the family decided to sell the funeral home.
And of course we were in competition with another local funeral home down here on
the coast that Loewens whooped in and bought, and they became a regional one
of one of those regional partners, and so they basically took Loewen's chuck book
to run around and buy other funeral homes to grow their acquisition base. And
so one of the funeral homes he bought was the one in Jackson that we
had the agreement with, and because we were competitors on the coast, I
think he kind of carried that attitude into that arrangement in Jackson and walked in
one day and said, well, we're not producing into that company anymore.
It was really the regional part that breached that contract. And so so that's
what started the disagreement legally. And and of course my dad flew to Canada,
sat down with Ready on his bode and you know, encouraged him to
honor the agreement. And he says, well, you know, the way
we can honor it is you sell us some of your funeral homes, or
you sell us your funeral homes, and we'll work it out, you know.
And and that's why my day said, well, you know, they're
just not for sale. And so that's where the dispute arose. And uh.
And then of course, uh, as I mentioned, time went on
and we were about to go to trial, and then there was an effort
to settle the arrangement, you know, settle you know, in other words,
reach a settlement agreement, which we did and uh, but then that
wasn't honored either, and so that's when the damages even got more serious and
so forth. So the loan group just had the history, is it.
The loan group just decided to day, he's a little guy, I'm not
going to pay him or I'm not going to run my age, yeah,
you know, and and uh, and my understanding is that you know,
the competitor on the on the coast that they do, you know, that
became a regional partner. He learned of the settlement agreement, which involved selling
their insurance company to US, in addition to rolling a bunch of pre arranged
trust funeral funds into that into the tune at ten or fifteen million, and
so he flew to Canada with his dad and he was kind of like,
no, no, you're not making no deal with my competitor, you know.
And so Llewen was kind of in a situation where he was either going
to get sued by US or get sued by his own regional partner, you
know, theoretically and possibly, And so I think he just chose not to
you know, dishonor the arrangement he had with one of his own regional partners
over you know, settling with US. And so that's where he didn't settle
and uh and kind of acquiesced to the demands of his his regional partner.
And so uh, I think that was part of what also happened in the
whole deal as it turned out. And and there was evidence that backed that
up as we got into the trial and and discovery was was brought forth and
whatnot. Yeah. Yeah, so there there was a paper trail and it
led the substantiated Yeah what what I just communicated? Yeah, there was there
was a note and uh, you know, and there there was communication from
the gentleman that we met with how to reach a settlement agreement that you know,
if if ore competitor learned of that, then in all likelihood they would
torpedo. And that's kind of what is happening on it. You know.
So did you get to see the movie? Yeah? I saw the movie,
and it sounds like they took some of the cliff notes way out of
some of the evidence gathering in things that you just described. Yeah, yeah,
a little better. Yeah, yeah, I mean they you know,
they took a lot of liberties and making the movie. But it was a
very complex situation to add best, you know. I mean, there were
a lot of moving parts that led to where this thing went. But you
know, they essentially you know, and it's kind of like when we were
meeting down in New Orleans while the filming was going on, and I was
talking with the executive from Amazon, and I was telling him. I said,
you're doing this movie, and you're doing it from the point of the
conflict to the end of the verdict. I said, but you know,
what you really had here was a mini series. I mean, this thing
went on four and a half years before it went to trial. And then
I said, the ramifications after trial, whereas the riveting is the trial itself.
And so you know, but I mean, in fairness to them,
you know, they had to take a very complex matter and try to cliff
noted down into you know, a deliverable, understandable sequence. And so with
that, you know, there was some liberties taken. And I think I
might have mentioned to you earlier possibly, but we the family had created a
website called the Burial dot org and it's the burial dot org without a dash
between the and burial. It's just one word, the burial dot org.
And if you go to that, there's a lot of actual documentation in and
around the time of the trial. There's many stories that were written about it
that are very very accurate. There's a few video clips that talked to and
reaccounted what happened in the case, and so there's a lot of very very
interesting information in the top right hand corners of the toolbar that leads you to
a just a plethora of information and there's even a fact versus fiction section in
there that the family put together for the inquiring mind. Yeah, one of
the other questions I had it was in the movie because I know that when
business ventures go go sideways sometimes that it also causes stress in the family.
Were you guys all united together with that or was there any real stress between
maybe your mom and dad or the rest of the family over what was going
on. No, No, we were all united in that. You know,
my father by and Lord of course he was a fourth generation funeral director
that you know, the business was established well, we pegged the date at
the conclusion of the Civil War, even though our family owned land prior to
the Civil War and was working the land. They and Edward o'keeffeen enlisted in
the Live Oak Rifles Infantry of the Civil War, but he returned home to
work the land following the Civil War, and thus, you know, uh,
that's where the origins of the business began. He was basically a glorified
taxi driver. He had horses and wagons and he would people used to travel
to the town because there were these natural artesian wells that the water flowed up
out of the ground and they were said to be of a healing nature.
And so people would travel who were sick by stage coach or train ocean springs,
and he would meet him at the train depot or the stage coach and
bring him out to the hotel and out to the springs and back and you
know, with the hopes of being healed and and of course if some of
them weren't healed and passed, why then oftentimes we were called to carry you
know, take put them on the wagon and carry him out to the cemetery.
And that's kind of how we got into it, you know, in
the beginnings. But uh, but my father, you know, he was
a fourth generation. But as far as the the insurance side of the business,
we were much like all of the funeral homes. We just had our
own little burial insurance. And my father was the one who you know,
conceived the idea of forming a legal reserve company and serving funeral homes statewide,
and so he built all of that. And so when he went into this
dispute, you know, there was a number of you know, family members
that worked in the life insurance company. Some worked in the funeral home.
I had already acquired the funeral home operation from my dad at that point prior
to the conflict, so I owned the funeral homes at that time, and
my father and I were working in tandem together, and I was a plaintiff
end the trial with him. During the conflict, I spent my thirty ninth
birthday on the witness stand for two days, you know, the day of
and the day after, and and so you know, was there the whole
way. But there was never any dissension or you know, uh, you
know, non unification about you know, the facts were on our side.
I mean, we knew we had a contract that simply wasn't being honored.
And uh, of course, you know, the reality is when you go
to trial, particularly with a jury, I mean, you don't know how
that thing's going to go. You know, you never know. I mean,
it's it's anybody's game once you get in there with you know, a
live jury. And so we were, you know, certainly up against that,
and uh what we believed that you know, we had a solid position
and that the facts were on our side. Yeah. The thing I want
to make make this clear how important is or what does it? What does
the insurance actually you do? Does it guarantee the payment after a person passes
that it helps the family pay for the funeral? Is that what that does?
Yes, exactly, It's basically you pay a small premium and then of
course if death occurs, then when and if it does, why the insurance
money pays for helps pay for the funeral. And so there's been variations of
the type of coverage over the years. Initially, there were small policies written
that just had a small fixed base value, like three hundred five hundred dollars,
and that was the max you could write in one company, and so
they'd form another company and they'd write three or four policies to that limit.
And then when that limit, you know, was succeeded by inflation, then
they would form an ordinary life policy. It'd be like a thousand dollars.
It was not tied to being having to be paid to the funeral home,
but it was coverage for funerals. And then later evolved the pre arranged policy
itself, which was actually tied to the funeral that had dividend growth and kind
of kept up with inflation. So there's been different products over the years,
but basically it's all in an effort to soften the financial blow of anybody having
to bury a loved one. So it's kind kind of a it is kind
of like a life insurance policy, but it is. Yes, it is
just designed to pay for the funeral. Yeah, it's it's yeah, yeah,
that's the easiest way to look at it. It's like a life policy
designed to pay for the funeral. Okay, that makes sense, And I
can see how they can be kind of kind of lucrative, you know that
for your family to get into, and probably necessary for your family to get
into to help make sure because hey, sometimes funerals get expensive. With with
that being said, there was in the movie it says something about it sounded
like a beaten switch sort of thing where they would sell a lower end product
for for a much larger markup depending on where where the person was when they
where their families were in in uh in Mississippi or or yeah, you know,
I think I think what they were trying to get to was that that
families were being put upon and and this really you know, I don't think
the movie told it succinctly like it was told to the jury, which was
one of the things that kind of incensed the jury was the fact that,
you know, like Loewen went into one town and there were three independent funeral
homes in that town by different names, and then they quietly bought all three
of those and then they systematically raised the prices on all of them. And
so if somebody wasn't happy, you know, you know, went to the
other funeral home, they were still going to lower, you know, and
so they were you know, they would keep the existing names of the businesses,
so nobody knew that Lowen owned them, but they you know, but
lowing and they raised all those prices. If they were in another town where
they had a lower funeral home and a real competitor that they didn't own,
then they kept the prices lower there. So they were selectively taking advantage of
people where they could, where they had captive markets. And and that's what
that's what we you know, proved as one of the anti trust issues in
our case. And that was what really and since the jury was that they
were selectively taking advantage of people, and uh and so I think the movie
was trying to project that when they had the people on the stand and they
were talking about being taken advantage of and that sort of thing, but it
didn't really kind of drive it home like that explanation I just gave you.
Yeah, that's that's a better explanation in that it sounds like they're trying to
form a monopoly. Well, well they did in some towns, you know,
and and whatnot. And in fact that the truth is that Loewen had
already been cited for anti trust issue or too before they ever got to Mississippi.
So this wasn't something new and uh and and it may have been something
that our legal team that ferreted out as a potential, uh, you know,
soft spot for whether they were conducting business. Yeah, I could see
how maybe a judgment or somebody would want to I want to add that to
two if the evidence like that would add to the punitive damages. Because if
you if you were cited in say I'm just making this up out of my
head. If you if you're being cited in Mississippi for anti trust issues,
but you were cited in say, Alabama for the same ana trust issues,
it's gonna it's gonna kind of weigh against you in the new in the new
trial, isn't it. Yeah, no, yeah, it would, it
would, And so yeah, I mean so those were some of the things.
And then there were other liberties taken. For example, the uh uh
you know, there wasn't a black female that was on the lead council for
the Loewen group. You know, she was simply invented by the uh,
the director, Maggie Betts. You know, she's a black female director,
and she wanted to inject a strong black female presence in this movie, you
know. And and of course Jerreny Smaller did a beautiful job with that,
and uh, you know, did a fine job. But that's just one
of the things that you know, they used as a liberty too. And
and you know the part where they put one of our attorneys, Michael Alread,
on the stand and basically ferreted out that his dad was a KKK member
and all that my grandfather, uh our our attorney, Michael Redd, which
was there, really was a Michael Redd and he was never even put on
the witness stand. So all of that was just made up and uh and
and so the whole part about part of our legal team being unhappy and going
back to Florida and all of that. None of that happened. I mean,
our our legal team was unified the whole way. Those were just things
that you know, were added to the script, you know, to hythen
uh some of uh, you know, the storyline and so forth. Yeah,
the bas Hollywood formula exactly. Yeah. Yeah, so so anyway,
Uh, but you know it seems to you know, the movie retained the
number one spot in the nation for Amazon Prime for near a month, you
know, and uh uh and then you know, still hung at number two
and number three, and was number one in a lot of foreign countries.
Yeah, when it was released, and so it's been well received. You
know, we're hopeful that you know that the production team and all and actors
may you know, get some award nominations for the movie and so forth.
Yeah, that's that's always always fun. At the end of the film,
there was some video footage of your your family's business. So has it helped
helped you guys? Any with a little fame in the town Biloxie. Well,
Biloxi is not exactly a small area, is it. Uh No,
it's it's it's more of uh, you know, it's a coastal city.
We're along the Gulf Mississippi Gulf Coast. We're in three different cities, and
so we're you know, actually four or more of cities along the coast.
So but it is kind of more it's not a big population base like New
Orleans or Mobile, Alabama, you know, some of these larger cities.
You know, it's it's more rural in nature. But at any rate,
yeah, well, I mean, obviously, you know, we've been in
business. You know, twenty and twenty five will be our one hundred and
sixtieth year, So we've been in business a long long time along the coast.
Each generation of o'keefes has been involved either militarily, politically or civically since
you know, the Civil War and so so our name is you know,
it been synonymous with the Gulf Coast in one of those fashions for near one
hundred and sixty years now. So obviously a lot of you know, we're
fairly fairly well known. And my father was a legislator for a while and
uh and then also let me see he was he was in the state legislature
in Jackson, Missus. He was a two time mayor of the city of
Biloxi. And so my great uncle was the mayor of the city of Biloxi,
and he was the Adjutant General of the Mississippi National Guard. And uh
and so with those political posts over the years. A great grandfather of mine
was an alderman in Ocean Springs, So you know, the name's been around
for a long So when the movie came out, and uh and of course,
you know, at the time of the trial, if you if you
look at that site that I indicated to you, I mean it drew national
Yeah, it drew national attention at that time. I mean Time magazine had
an article on it. There was an article in the New Yorker. Yeah,
I mean there there was quite a bit of high profile exposure about that.
At the time. I believe it might have been the second largest verdict
in the nation, and it was certainly the largest verdict in Mississippi. So
uh So when the movie came out, a lot of people, actually,
you know, I've heard from a number of people they didn't even know it
pertained to the family. They just saw it advertised with Jamie Fox and Tommy
Lee Jones and thought they had watched it, and then they were bowled over
when they realized what it was about. And uh and so we've heard from
a number of people in that regard, you know, but uh, but
yeah, I mean it's definitely you know, an interesting Uh. I've had
a number of calls for you know, interviews about the movie from different groups
and uh and there's still a few more yet to come, but uh and
some you know within the industry, and so uh so, yeah, it's
kind of, you know, been interesting to go back into all of that
twenty seven years after it happened. You know, Yeah, well, how
were you were you satisfied with the job that Amazon did overall in their production
team? Yeah, I mean we're you know, it's not the story we
would have told. You know, in fact, they had some other fought
or written into the story that we absolutely objected to, and they graciously at
least remove a couple of points from it, you know. So, uh,
they were kind of tray and my father to be more fun finantially downtrodden
and this and that to height and I think the intensity of the verdict,
but you know, it just you know, wasn't necessarily that wasn't the case.
And uh and you know they projected in the movie when he was on
cross examination that his license had been suspended, and that never happened. I
mean, that was all made up. Well you know, uh, I
mean I don't think you probably know my father, but he was a World
War Two fighter ace pilot, uh with the Marines, and he was an
honorable man, yes, and and then and they were kind of you know,
rejecting him to be having his license suspended and this and that he was
an honorable businessman and so that wasn't setting well, you know, with with
me personally. And uh, I don't know if you're aware, but shortly
after the trial, my father sold the rights to the movie. Both he
and Willie Gary, the attorney, signed rights with Bobby Shreiver And that's John
F. Kennedy's nephew, John F. Kennedy. His sister Eunice, that's
her son. And he bought the rights to the movie in nineteen ninety six,
right after the settlement of the trial in nineteen ninety five, and so
he had the rights at that time. And I think my father thought that
they would largely track the accurate article that was written by Jonathan Horror in The
New Yorker, but they hired Doug Wright, who is a politziprized writer screenplaywriter,
and so he took kind of a different take, you know, and
he's the one that injected a lot of that subjectivity into it for the story
height and awareness and storyline and so forth. And so when you know,
we didn't get we weren't privy to the script until I was driving to New
Orleans for them for the film, and so I'm literally reading it on the
way over there, and I'm reading about you know, they had this point
in there where they're attacking a license suspension notice on the funeral, which that's
never happened. I'm operating a business here in South Mississippi, and I mean,
my business license has never been suspended. And so so anyway, I'm
in the lobby of the hotel and Bobby Shreiver's there, you know, and
he comes up to, Man, what would you dad think about this movie?
Wouldn't he be excited about this movie being made twenty seven years after?
And I said, well, I'll tell you the truth. I think he'd
want to whip Doug Writ's ass for writing that script the way he wrote it,
you know, And he's, oh, come on, man, it's
just a movie. It's just a movie, you know, And I said
no, no, I said, he'd want to whip his ass. I
said, you know, he wouldn't be going for that, you know,
And oh, come on, man, you know, and so anyway,
but but you know, basically, and I've voiced my concerns to the executive
producer for Amazon and he said, look, Jeff, he said, just
give us a chance, Just give us a chance to you know, we're
going to work. Just your dad's going to come off being loved in this
movie and get you know, be a good guy and all that. He
said, just give us a chance, you know. And so when we
saw the first cut, you know, they had that one thing I mentioned
about the you know, license suspension being tacked on the funeral home, and
then they had him saving Tommy Lee Jones saying that he had taken insurance company
reserves and invested him in the savings and loan went bad. Well, you
know, for those that are in the business that they know, that's an
illegal act. And so here they got my dad, who's an honorable businessman,
doing an illegal act and having the license suspended. And so I said,
you know, we just can't agree to you know, having those you
know, if you take those two things out, you know, then then
you know, we feel like, I mean, that's you know, we'd
like to change more. But I mean they're far up the line on the
they were already filming, you know, they they had the actors, they're
paying them, and they're not going to back up and rewrite the whole move,
you know. So so you know, we knew that, you know,
there was not going to be any opportunity to fully tell the story we
would have told, you know. But uh so, at the end of
the day, I mean, it appears that the movie you know, has
done well and has been well received, and we've received frankly, nothing but
compliments, even in spite of what was left in there, you know.
So uh so overall, we're we're pleased at the end of the day,
you know, I mean, there, you know, we certainly had some
concerns going in, but I did communicate to Scott Fondus with Amazon that he
kept his word, and he and and listen, hats off to Doug Wright
as well, because, even in spite of the little harsh at teas that
he had integrated early on, the movie seems to be very, very popular
and so you know, he's he's still got the touch apparently, you know,
with his writing savviness. So so anyway, uh yeah, I think
overall we're we're pretty pleased with it. Great. All right, Well that's
about all the questions I had for you on today. I want to thank
you for joining us, and I want to thank everybody else for listening.
Jeff, it's been a pleasure meeting you. It's my pleasure to meet you,
Michael, and you know, we we'd be interested to get a little
more feedback. You know, you're home based in Canada there if if you
hear or see, you know, any particular things up in that neighborhood concerning
the movie, please let us know about it. I sure will. Thanks
again, Jeff R. Okay, So, as as we thought that,
yeah, there were some liberties taken, and the o'key family did sign off
on some so that this story could actually get out there, and we did
discover that the O'Keefe family has been a staple in the Biloxi community since the
American Civil War and continues to serve the people around them faithfully and diligently.
So I do want to thank Jeff O'Keefe for appearing with us. It was
a real pleasure to meet him and to speak with him. And I want
to thank another friend of mine who actually made the introduction, Tom Crean,
who is a funeral director and part of the Kearney's funeral home system here close
to my home. The show has been produced by Depictions Media. Please contact
us at depictions dot media for more information.