Macy woman looks to start assistance fund in honor of dad lost to suicide

Helen Burden appeals to officials of Fulton County and the city of Rochester to establish financial assistance for families in need of suicide cleanup services after her father, shown above, took his own life in December 2023.

Losing a loved one to suicide is traumatic, even more so when grieving family members must take on the unthinkable task of cleaning up after that person is gone.

Unfortunately, that's a reality Helen Burden knows too well – and one she hopes no one else ever has to face. While still mourning the loss of her father to suicide, she has been appealing to officials of Fulton County and the city of Rochester to establish financial assistance for families in need of suicide cleanup services.

"I don't want anybody to go through what I had to go through," Burden said about cleaning up after her father, Henry Paulson, who took his own life with a firearm last December. "It was the most awful thing ever. I had to clean up my dad's blood. I had to scrub, and it went down into the basement. I smell it every day."

Paulson was pronounced dead at his Rochester home in the 1300 block of Franklin Street on Dec. 10, 2023, following a standoff with local law enforcement. While staged outside, police would hear four shots be fired from inside the home – the fourth believed to be fatal. The other three, along with a gunshot that was unaccounted for, were found to be fired into ceilings of the home.

In phone calls with police, offering him assistance during the standoff, Paulson reportedly stated that there was no help, he did not want any help and asked officers to tell his family that he loved them.

In addition to cleaning up after Paulson's suicide, Burden and the family also had to repair the home's front door, which was breached by an Indiana State Police Emergency Response Team called in to assist. That team additionally deployed a drone into the home that located Paulson on the floor of his living room with a single gunshot wound to his chest.

Officers then proceeded into the residence to collect evidence, and the coroner arrived to remove Paulson's body. The nightmare, however, was just beginning for Burden and other members of the family.

Burden explained that her father didn't have insurance, which can cover cleanup costs. Such services were quoted to her at $2,000, which the family could not afford on top of funeral expenses. The task fell to Burden and her nephew.

"My sisters couldn't do it. They had to walk out," Burden said, adding the entire cleanup took four days. She's now receiving counseling and connecting with community leaders on her initiative of getting a fund started in her father's name.

She describes Paulson as the glue of the family, someone who never met a stranger, who helped others and was only a phone call away if you ever had a problem. She also described him as a man who showed little emotion, keeping things in like his experience in the Army.

"I think he was so depressed inside that he got to the point where he was just tired," Burden said. She and the family speculated whether he had reached out for help after finding a card for a suicide hotline left out in his home.

"I can't bring him back, so my way of helping him now is to help others in his community," Burden said. "I will feel so much better inside once this gets going."

She encourages those interested in her initiative with fundraising ideas to contact her at 574-382-0499.