Scammers target grieving Louisville families with fake obituary schemes

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — For Dena Weedman, the loss of her only son, Dylan Bryant, is raw.

"He was all about his family and his mother was his biggest fan," Weedman said. "He shared a special bond with his sister."

Bryant died on Aug. 12 at the age of 30. He battled addiction.

"My baby," Weedman said. "He was loved. I mean, his funeral was huge, he had a lot of people there. He was only 30."

But within days, scammers saw an opportunity to profit from her pain.

A friend showed Weedman a fake obituary for her son on a random website.

"None of this is true," she said. "He was not an avid car person. He didn't know how to barely change oil. He did not pass away in a tragic car accident."

The death date and photo were correct, but almost everything else was false.

The day after the funeral, a friend texted Weedman after seeing the fake obituary online. The post included a fundraiser asking for money the family didn’t need.

"A fundraiser has been set up to cover cremation, towing and other costs with the remaining funds going towards his son’s needs," the fake obituary read.

Weedman said the family had already paid for her son's services.

WDRB found at least four fake obituaries for Bryant, each with different false details.

"He was not married," Weedman said.

These websites and Facebook pages publish hundreds of fake memorials, often scraping information from legitimate obituaries or social media posts.

According to tech company SecureWorks, scammers monitor Google searches for popular obituaries and then post mock memorials to make money from ads or fake security alerts. Some pages even use pop-ups designed to steal personal information.

"I don’t know who would want to do something like that," Weedman said.

Experts suggest a few ways to protect yourself:

Verify the source by sticking to funeral home websites or legitimate news outlets.
Avoid unknown links and look for obituaries shared by people who knew the deceased.
Watch for generic, bland or inaccurate language that may be AI-generated.
Be cautious of pop-ups and requests for money.

For Weedman, it’s important that her son is remembered for who he really was.

"The light of our whole family -- the funny one, the joking one," she said.

Weedman wants her son remembered only by the words she wrote. Nothing else.

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