In Lafayette, Louisiana, where the air still carries the weight of unspoken sorrows, a father’s funeral became a battlefield of raw emotions and flying fists.
On November 16, 2025, Eric Lemaire was laid to rest after a life cut tragically short, leaving behind his devoted partner, Sarah Viator, their two young sons, Haven and Jon, and a fractured family web tangled in accusations, resentment, and unimaginable pain.
Just eight days later, on November 24, Sarah unleashed a torrent of anguish on Facebook, her words a piercing cry that has since rippled through social media, exposing the ugly underbelly of grief gone wrong.
At the center of this storm stands 14-year-old Haven Lemaire, a boy already suffering from the loss of his dad, who found himself assaulted amid the chaos, defending his mother with a bravery that no child should ever have to summon.
Sarah’s post was striking and candid, featuring videos that showed the delicate moments before everything fell apart.
She wrote-:
According to Sarah, the trouble started just minutes after a moment of calm, when her son, Haven, politely asked if his mother wanted one last photo in front of his father’s casket.
Another family member, identified only as John, reportedly refused and said something Haven felt was disrespectful.
Sarah told everyone they were leaving. As mother and son walked away, words were exchanged, tempers flared, and within moments, the situation exploded.
Sarah claims Eric’s niece Selena (who goes by “CeCe Lo” online) got in her face, made a hand gesture, and bragged that she had paid for part of the burial plot.
Sarah says she told Selena to “stay in her lane,” and shortly after, another niece, Sebrina, allegedly attacked her from behind.
Haven, seeing his mother being assaulted just days after losing his father, rushed in yelling, “Get off my mom!” and managed to pull Sebrina away.
That’s when Sarah and Haven both say Steven Crosby, Eric’s brother and Jennifer Crosby’s husband, grabbed the 14-year-old boy, pulled him away from the fight, and put their hands on him.
Others jumped in; Sarah says she was tackled to the ground and jumped by multiple people while all she could hear was Haven screaming and crying for them to leave his mama alone.
A family friend, David Franklin IV, tried to pull grown men off the teenager and was reportedly sucker-punched for his efforts.
Sarah says someone had promised police protection because of known tensions, but no officers ever arrived.
She now believes the assault was planned by certain relatives who “just wanted to hurt the last part of Eric” that remained, her and the boys.
The family had spent $2,500 traveling from out of state for the funeral, only to leave traumatized. “I think they should’ve missed their daddy’s funeral,” Sarah wrote through tears, “and that’s a sad, sad thing to say.”
Remarkably, despite being tackled and allegedly jumped by several people, Sarah says she emerged without a single scratch or bruise.
She attributes the lack of injuries to Eric himself: “I think Eric laid his body on me one last time to protect me.”
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The other side tells a very different story.
Eric’s niece Selena posted a long comment directly under Haven’s own 4-minute video recounting the incident, insisting Sarah was the aggressor from the start.
Selena claims Sarah loudly announced that “everyone” had to leave the burial and only she, Haven, and Jon were allowed to stay, despite Selena and other blood relatives having paid thousands toward the $15,000 funeral expenses.
When Selena refused to leave, she says Sarah got in her face, cursed her, and slapped her hand away.
Selena admits she put her purse down and told Sarah to leave, but insists Sarah was the one running around screaming “Who wants it?” and ultimately attacked Sebrina unprovoked.
Jennifer Crosby, wife of the uncle accused of grabbing Haven, defended her husband fiercely:
“There are two sides to every story. My husband did not and would never hurt his nephew… He was breaking up a fight Sarah started. What kind of mother would do that to her sons?”
Via Facebook
Other attendees echoed the sentiment that Sarah escalated an already tense situation into full-blown chaos at the graveside and that posting graphic videos and play-by-plays was only hurting the children further.
One commenter lamented that Haven was forced to “act like the adult” while the grown-ups brawled over a casket.
The war of words has only grown uglier in the days since, with accusations of drug addiction, threats of more violence, and deeply personal attacks traded publicly on social media, much of it visible to Eric and Sarah’s grieving teenage sons.
At the heart of the firestorm is Haven Lemaire, a 14-year-old boy who just wanted to say goodbye to his dad.
Instead, he found himself physically pulled into an adult fight, allegedly manhandled by his uncle, and now watching his family tear itself apart online.
Whatever the full truth may be, and with only cellphone videos and conflicting Facebook testimonies, that truth remains murky, one fact is painfully clear: a child has been hurt in every possible way in the days since his father was laid to rest.
As the comments, threats, and accusations continue to fly, many are left asking how a funeral meant to bring closure instead became the spark that set an already fractured family ablaze, and whether Haven and his brother will ever get the peace they deserve to grieve their father.
