A Florida man didn’t hold back when writing his father’s obituary, slamming 81-year-old Larry Pfaff Sr. in The Florida Times-Union as “narcissistic” and an “abusive alcoholic” whose passing is proof that “evil does eventually die.” Larry Pfaff Jr. penned the rather unconventional tribute and didn’t think twice about publishing it in the paper as he believes it offers a truthful portrait of the man his father was.
- Pfaff Sr. didn’t sound like a very nice man. “[Pfaff] is survived by his three children, no four. Oops, five children. Well as of 2022 we believe there is one more that we know about, but there could be more. His love was abundant when it came to himself, but for his children it was limited,” his son wrote. “From a young age, he was a ladies’ man and an abusive alcoholic, solidifying his commitment to both with the path of destruction he left behind, damaging his adult children, and leaving them broken.”
- He was a disgraced police officer. As Pfaff Jr. reveals, his father worked for the NYPD for more than 20 years but “because of his alcohol addiction, his Commanding Officer took away his gun and badge, replacing them with a broom until he could get his act together.”
- Pfaff Sr.’s “hobbies” were also pretty questionable. They included “abusing his first wife,” 58-year-old Pfaff Jr. says. He adds that his father “possesses no redeeming qualities for his children, including the ones he knew, and the ‘ones he knew about.'”
- Pfaff Jr. didn’t have much of a relationship with his father. He told the Times-Union that his father left the family when he was nine, then went on to have a lot of other kids with other women that he also abandoned. Pfaff Jr. only managed to find them by doing DNA research.
- He began writing the obituary for his dad while the elder man was still alive. He described it as “a way for me to really cleanse myself and let that part of my life go.” He held onto the piece until his father died on June 27.
- Not everyone is a big fan of the obituary. Gannett, the company that owns the Times-Union, told First Coast News: “We regrettably published an obituary that did not adhere to our guidelines and we are looking into the matter further. We regret any distress this may have caused.”
