Grave robbers resell plots

[southsider2k5]

I can't imagine being a much lower life form than this...

 

http://www.wbbm780.com/Grieving-families--...ed-one-/4764562

 

Bond set for four alleged grave robbers

 

ALSIP, Ill. (AP/WBBM) - Four former employees accused of digging up bodies and reselling plots at a historic black cemetery near Chicago made about $300,000 in a scheme believed to have stretched back at least four years, authorities said Friday.

 

RELATED STORY: Emmett Till's original casket found amid gargage, 'possums

 

Three gravediggers and a manager at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip are accused of unearthing hundreds of corpses and either dumping some in a weeded, desolate area near the cemetery or double-stacking others in graves. The cemetery is the burial place of civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till and blues singers Willie Dixon and Dinah Washington.

 

While Till's grave site was not disturbed, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said investigators found his original iconic glass-topped casket rusting in a shack at the cemetery.

 

The 14-year-old Chicagoan was killed in 1955 after reportedly whistling at a white woman during a visit to his uncle's house in Mississippi. Nearly 100,000 people visited the casket during a four-day public viewing in Chicago, and images of his battered body helped spark the civil rights movement.

 

When Till was exhumed in 2005 during an investigation of his death, he was reburied in a new casket. The original casket was supposed to be kept for a planned memorial to Till.

 

Thousands of families have come to the cemetery since Thursday looking for answers about their loved ones, authorities said. Hundreds of relatives, some clutching maps of the 150-acre site, were seen at the cemetery Friday.

 

Dart said officials have assisted the families in locating relatives' plots, and family members have reported at least 30 cases of disturbed graves and missing headstones.

 

The sheriff said two burials planned for Thursday also have gone wrong - with one person initially buried in the wrong plot and another whose plot was already occupied by someone else's body.

 

"This is a heartless act, these graveyard robbers," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said Friday. Jackson called on the cemetery's Arizona-based owner, Perpetua Inc., to answer for the conditions.

 

The Illinois official who regulates cemeteries said Friday that the process of revoking the cemetery's license has been started. Comptroller Daniel Hynes also said Friday his office is investigating whether the money that families paid for future cemetery needs is still safely held in a trust.

 

The cemetery is owned by Perpetua Holdings of Illinois. Hynes said the company is cooperating with authorities, but the horrible problems at Burr Oak justify revoking the license.

 

Perpetua started the investigation by calling Cook County authorities to report alleged financial wrongdoing and issued a statement Thursday that the company is cooperating with investigators.

 

The suspects, all of whom are black, were identified as Carolyn Towns, 49, Keith Nicks, 45, and Terrence Nicks, 39 - all of Chicago - and Maurice Dailey, 61, of Robbins. They each have been charged with one count of dismembering a human body, a felony.

 

Bond was set at $250,000 for Towns, the cemetery's manager, and at $200,000 for the other three.

 

Authorities said Towns also pocketed donations she elicited for a Till memorial museum. She has not been charged in connection with those allegations. Court documents show she was fired from the cemetery in late May amid allegations of financial wrongdoing.

 

A spokeswoman for the Cook County state's attorney's office said Towns is being represented by a private attorney, but she did not know the attorney's name. The Cook County public defender's office said it had not yet assigned attorneys to the other three cases.

 

The Sheriff's office will try to help families determine if their loved ones' remains have been moved and discarded.

 

Hundreds of people turned out in the heat Thursday to check the grave sites of their loved ones.

 

Ericka Tolbert's daughter died when she was only 10 days old. That was 21 years ago.

 

And Ericka Tolbert was feeling a mother's grief for a second time.

 

"I couldn't find her. It was like her headstone had been removed. And I pray to God that they have not messed with my child.

 

"Jail time is not large enough for this type of punishment. What needs to happen is, they need to dig some holes and bury them alive. And then when they turn to bones, throw them away."

 

Investigators are beginning the job of mapping and surveying the crime scene where bodies were discarded.

 

WBBM's Steve Miller spoke with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.

 

Sheriff Dart stood on the western edge of the cemetery.

 

"The smaller mounds that you can sort of see peeking up there are the ones that we have found holding bones in them. They sort of fit the M.O., which is the grave was dug up in whole and deposited in one large group.

 

"So most of those mounds are potential crime scenes. Many of them have parts of the burial vault in them as well. A lot of them have burial vaults and rebar sticking out.

 

"You'll see that they run all throughout here in the higher weeds, going down. And then there's many more down that way, too."

 

Sheriff Dart says hundreds of bodies are there. Dumped. And he says it will take months to find answers.

 

At the bond hearing, it was learned the operation allegedly run by Towns involved her re-selling the graves and taking the money, and compensating the three men with overtime pay.

 

Keith Nicks was the foreman. His brother Terrence Nicks ran the dump truck. And Dailey ran the back hoe.

 

Towns allegedly would tell the men to go dig up a body, put them in a shallow grave and then put a new body in the original disturbed grave.

 

Keith Nicks has a lengthy criminal record, although he was only ever found guilty of disorderly conduct. He was charged at various points with assault, domestic battery and violating an order of protection, but the charges were dropped.

 

Towns has no prior criminal charges. Criminal background information for Dailey and for Terrence Nicks was not immediately learned.

 

A Class X felony is punishable by 6 to 30 years in prison.

 

The cemetery owners went to authorities with the allegations in this case about six weeks ago. An employee not involved in the scheme told them colleagues were doing burials on the side and using occupied grave sites, and discarding the bodies already in the graves.

 

At a news conference at the cemetery Thursday afternoon, Sheriff Dart explained how the scheme worked. An unsuspecting person would buy a burial plot for a cash payment, and afterward, one of the gravediggers disinterred an existing grave and dumped the body somewhere in the back of the cemetery. The burial plot buyer never found out.

 

Towns was at the center of the operation, both pocketing the payments and directing the gravediggers, Dart said.

 

"The records are in shambles here. The actual sites are not well marked. It's very difficult to ascertain what is where," Dart said. "So this is going to take some time, so we've been trying to plead with the public as much as we ask for patience, because it's going to be needed now."

 

It is believed the operation had been going on for four to five years. The owners have been in charge of the cemetery for the past six years.

 

The forensic investigation is going to take months to perform.

 

Five cemetery employees are assisting the sheriff's office in the investigation, on which almost 100 sheriff's employees are working, Cook County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Patterson said.

 

The FBI is also assisting in the investigation, looking for possible federal violations, FBI Chicago Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Tom Troutman said.

 

Burr Oak Cemetery is the final resting place for many prominent African-Americans, including Emmett Till. His plot was not disturbed. Till is the teenager from Chicago who was brutally murdered in 1955. His death in Mississippi helped spark the Civil Rights Movement.

 

CBS 2 has learned that Carolyn Towns is the administrator for the Emmett Till fund. Dart alleged at a Thursday news conference that Towns was pocketing money from that fund, which she set up independently. She is listed as the contact person for the Till Historical Museum at the Burr Oaks Cemetery.

 

But no such museum exists or was ever built, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said.

 

Blues legends Willie Dixon and Dinah Washington are also buried in the cemetery.

 

The cemetery is now owned by Tucson, Ariz.-based Perpetua Inc.

 

If you have loved ones buried at Burr Oak Cemetery and want to check on their well-being, call (800) 942-1950.

 

Anyone who donated money to the Emmett Till Historical Museum fund is also asked to call the number above.

[lostfan]

I never knew Emmett Till was buried in Chicago. I need to go sit in the corner now.

[Soxbadger]

In the last 2 days over 10 people have called my office asking what their legal rights are in regards to this.

 

 

[southsider2k5]

In the last 2 days over 10 people have called my office asking what their legal rights are in regards to this.

 

I'd be curious what the answer is...

[BearSox]

That's Alsip for ya....

[Texsox]

There is a special place in hell for these people.

 

Wasn't Dinah Washington on the Nights of Rodanth soundtrack?

[HuskyCaucasian]

Can someone please explain to me the outrage over the FORMER casket of Till? It was decaying in a warehouse with animals living in it and people (Jesse Jackson especially) are freaking out over it. I dont get it. He's not in it anymore. To me, it's just a box now.

[SnB]

I grew up 3 minutes walking distance from this cemetery.

 

 

I don't quite understand what the scheme was. They would dig up the old bodies so they could sell the plot again? What happened to the old tombstone?

[shipps]

I grew up 3 minutes walking distance from this cemetery.

 

 

I don't quite understand what the scheme was. They would dig up the old bodies so they could sell the plot again? What happened to the old tombstone?

 

That is what stumped me. All the people on TV crying about this yet they havent even visited the grave site of the deceased to notice that the tombstone was different.

[SnB]

That is what stumped me. All the people on TV crying about this yet they havent even visited the grave site of the deceased to notice that the tombstone was different.

exactly what i was thinking, you would have thought that since this was such a big operation, people would have noticed it little by little long ago.

 

Not to be insensitive, because this is horrible, just kind of odd.

[Texsox]

I trust that my brother is still buried at Ascension in Libertyville. I have not visited the grave in years, and would be outraged if they sold the lot.

[Texsox]

I trust that my brother is still buried at Ascension in Libertyville. I have not visited the grave in years, and would be outraged if they sold the lot. It's not like a bicycle that you need to keep locked up and watch. At least I would hope not.

[Kyyle23]

Apparently they went to the older tombstones that were in the backside and rarely visited part of the cemetary. the bones and tombstoneswere all dropped by a backhoe in a big dumpsite that was in a hidden lot as well. Some of the bones were smashed down in their plot and double stacked with other remains, others were dug up and discarded in the mass grave. They were so careless sometimes bones would drop off the backhoe on the road they were on and they would just leave them.

 

all of the resold plots were done strictly in cash, they are thinking about 300,000 in cash has been stolen so far

Edited July 11, 2009 by KyYlE23

[southsider2k5]

Can someone please explain to me the outrage over the FORMER casket of Till? It was decaying in a warehouse with animals living in it and people (Jesse Jackson especially) are freaking out over it. I dont get it. He's not in it anymore. To me, it's just a box now.

 

They were raising money to make a memorial to Till centered around the old casket. The cemetery was supposed to be preserving it until the memorial was completed.

[HuskyCaucasian]

They were raising money to make a memorial to Till centered around the old casket. The cemetery was supposed to be preserving it until the memorial was completed.

ah ok. Well, that makes sense then.

[shipps]

I am a pretty insensative person so I see it as a bunch of people who havent cared enough to visit a grave site for years and now that they found out these people did this they act like they are so devastated they wont make it through this. Hence money from settlements is what they are eyeballing with the whole dramatic act that they put on in front of the news.

 

[Soxbadger]

From what I can tell there isnt going to be much money from settlements, if any. Most of the defendants and the cemetery either have filed bankruptcy or will file it.

 

As for their legal rights, at this time there is an active criminal investigation. Once they found out who actually had their relatives moved or who was double buried, then some people would have standing to sue. (Depends on who paid for the plot if it was a son or daughter they could sue, if it was paid by the deceased the executor of the estate would have to sue for the estate.)

 

Ive never visited my grandparents grave, that does not mean that I wouldnt have the right to be upset if this happened to them.

 

/shrugs

 

 

[Heads22]

They were raising money to make a memorial to Till centered around the old casket. The cemetery was supposed to be preserving it until the memorial was completed.

 

It's a pretty powerful symbol. Him laying maimed in an open casket was a big deal as far as highlighting the disgustingness of racism.

[Texsox]

I am a pretty insensative person so I see it as a bunch of people who havent cared enough to visit a grave site for years and now that they found out these people did this they act like they are so devastated they wont make it through this. Hence money from settlements is what they are eyeballing with the whole dramatic act that they put on in front of the news.

 

 

SHIPPS, there are a whole lot of reasons to not visit, but you trust your loved ones remains are respected. There is comfort on knowing they are "resting comfortably". Having said that, I am certain there are some who could care less and are thinking about paydays.

[WilliamTell]

That's just down right creepy digging up old caskets to resell the plots. Last summer I helped mow a cemetary for a month and it first it was kinda strange realizing there are 6700 dead bodies in this area. Some of them died 100 years before I was born.

[Flash Tizzle]

Not that it relates to the story, but the ending of Cooley High was filmed at Burr Oak.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jENvGec4xmU

 

You can clearly see the Alsip watertower at 7:48, and Burr Oak written on the tarp above his buddies grave several minutes before.

Edited July 12, 2009 by Flash Tizzle

[BearSox]

Not that it relates to the story, but the ending of Cooley High was filmed at Burr Oak.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jENvGec4xmU

 

You can clearly see the Alsip watertower at 7:48, and Burr Oak written on the tarp above his buddies grave several minutes before.

 

Speaking of Movies with noticeable landmarks of Chicago/Suburbs, I pass by the Capital Cigar Shop Indian (Now it's owned by a couple eye doctors, one of which is mine!) that was in Wayne's World 1 practically every day.

 

[shipps]

Speaking of Movies with noticeable landmarks of Chicago/Suburbs, I pass by the Capital Cigar Shop Indian (Now it's owned by a couple eye doctors, one of which is mine!) that was in Wayne's World 1 practically every day.

 

 

That is a figure I was always mesmerized by when I was a kid. My cousin lived a block away and I would look forward to seeing the Indian when I would go visit him.

[Flash Tizzle]

That is a figure I was always mesmerized by when I was a kid. My cousin lived a block away and I would look forward to seeing the Indian when I would go visit him.

Yeah, before my family moved to Palos I lived off 62nd and Lawndale -- which is fairly close to this.

[nitetrain8601]

Yeah, before my family moved to Palos I lived off 62nd and Lawndale -- which is fairly close to this.

 

St. Nick's? I used to go to grade school.