Nearly two years after her son was shot and killed in her backyard, Rafiah Muhammad-McCormick applied for victim reimbursement from the state’s Criminal Injuries Compensation program. 

But she was nearly denied for an insufficient funeral-home receipt, one of many steps in a process victims’ families say is confusing, discouraging and intimidating.

“I’ve lost my son, the child that I carried for nine months,” she said. “Even though he’s not on this earth anymore, that umbilical cord is still connected to heaven. I’ve got to have the wherewithal to go get police reports and autopsy reports and receipts.”