KILLEEN, Texas — A Central Texas husband and wife who help clean up after tragedy and crimes have worked on several suicide cases in the area, and as a part of Suicide Prevention Month, they're sounding the alarm.
Kyli and Josh Abbatoye run Spotless Crime Clean, a service where they go into homes and clean up tragedies after police investigators are gone. They cleaned up four suicides in just one week.
On Tuesday, Sept. 10, they were on standby for three calls.
"With the economy being hard, we've seen a lot of suicides," said Kyli Abbatoye. "It does take a mental toll on us."
"Last year we did 11 suicides in nine days, so it was even worse," her husband, Josh Abbatoye, added.
Kyli Abbatoye said they came up with the idea after one of her coworkers at the time dealt with a family tragedy.
"I was a nurse and unfortunately, one of my coworkers that I worked with at the hospital in Temple, her boyfriend murdered her brother in their home," she said. "I asked her who came in to clean up the mess. She said, well, we asked, and the police said, sorry, we've released the scene. We don't have resources for that. So her church came in two weeks later to clean it. And I came home and told Josh the story and we talked about how traumatic it must have been for people to see that, smell it, all the things."
The next day the couple started Spotless Crime Clean, and eight years later they are still helping the Central Texas community. The Abbatoye's have served over 500 families in that eight years.
"If we can take that burden off of someone and just make the experience just a little less traumatic, then it's so worth it, so worth it," said Kyli Abbatoye.
The couple says they do this work with a mission of helping families and reminding them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
"We always say we're not here to just be cleaners and leave, you're part of our family now and you're stuck with us. We're going to check on you, we're going to talk about it, you know, if you need anything, our door is open," said Kyli Abbatoye.
September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day. If you or someone you know is in danger, contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.
"I think first of all is, don't be ashamed," Kyli Abbatoye said. "We're, we're all broken in one way. We all have struggles. We have issues. Life is hard. Just reach out, reach out to anybody, reach out to us, reach out to a stranger, anybody, a family member or a friend, there's help and there's hope, everybody's needed here."
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