They came in droves, generations of families pushing their relatives in wheelchairs, holding them and helping them walk, all while clutching faded obituaries, death certificates and other documents. Pamela Brown was one of hundreds who wandered through Burr Oakl Cemetery near Alsip today, searching in vain for answers. They scanned tombstones, shouted out names and navigated the bumpy terrain. Some stood weeping in frustration. Others said prayers, held each other, cursed out loud and marched out with nothing. A few families brought worn-out family Bibles to Burr Oak so they would have lists of names and dates for their buried relatives. For many African-Americans, burial of the dead is a ritual loaded with meaning that reaches all the way back to slavery. African-American families didn't have the authority to properly bury their dead until after slavery, and then many families were fragmented across the United States. It was at segregated, black-only cemeteries where they could rejoin loved ones to wait in peace until "the rapture" -- where their bodies would rejoin their spirits for a journey to the afterlife. That's why Brown continued to bury relatives at Burr Oak, she said. Even though the cemetery was shabby, she wanted her four grandparents, her mother and father, cousins and aunts to all rest together."Once you have one family member here, you'd put the others here," she said.
So when she heard Thursday that four people had been accused of reselling plots and dumping the remains of old bodies in an empty, abandoned lot, she was overcome with emotion. After searching the cemetery, she could only locate two of the grave sites of her 11 relatives.
"This is the biggest breach of trust I've ever experienced," said Brown of Oak Lawn.
Area funeral homes were inundated with calls from frantic families seeking burial records or assurance. A phone line the Cook County sheriff's office set up to take calls was overwhelmed. Alsip officials fielded hundreds of calls and dispatched police to handle traffic near the cemetery in unincorporated Cook County.
Prosecutors said 200 to 300 bodies were dug up and dumped in an isolated, weedy area of a cemetery at which many prominent African-Americans are buried, including civil rights icon Emmett Till. Exposed bones, chunks of concrete and broken coffins litter the hilly, overgrown area about four blocks long, authorities said.
Former cemetery manager Carolyn Towns, 49, foreman Keith Nicks, 45, and dump-truck operator Terrence Nicks, 39, all of Chicago, and back-hoe operator Maurice Dailey, 59, of Robbins, were each charged with dismembering a human body, a Class X felony. All face up to 30 years in prison. "This crime, it's a whole new dimension that shows us what lengths people will go to for financial gain," said State's Atty. Anita Alvarez. Sheriff Tom Dart said investigators, including dozens of FBI agents, would be at Burr Oak for months sorting through the discarded piles of bones. Not only were remains heaved into a "dump area" at the cemetery, bodies were allegedly double-buried in existing plots, Dart said. "Literally, they were pounded [down]," he said. "They pounded the other [body] down and put someone on top." "The idea of grave robbers, in my judgment there should be no bail. ... There should be a special place in hell," Rev. Jesse Jackson said at a news conference with Dart and Alvarez. Police described Towns, who has filed for bankruptcy three times, as the brains of the operation. She had been fired by the cemetery's owners because of theft allegations. Authorities are also investigating a memorial fund she set up in 2005 to build an Emmett Till museum and mausoleum at Burr Oak for the remains of Till, his mother and stepfather.
No construction work was ever done, and a Till family member said he hadn't heard from Towns in four years. Officials asked any donors to come forward. Towns, who is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail, was placed in the psychiatric wing of Cermak Hospital. "We're concerned for her based on a psychiatric evaluation," said sheriff's office spokesman Steve Patterson. Keith Nicks, who has nearly a dozen arrests since 1998 on misdemeanors charges including assault, domestic battery and violating orders of protection, told a Tribune reporter in May that the cemetery made money, but the owners weren't investing in equipment and upkeep. "It's embarrassing to have to explain to people why the cemetery looks this way," said Nicks, who like other grounds workers wore a uniform that said "Alive With History." Distraught family members had bigger concerns than appearances Thursday. JoAnn Dean, 66, worried about her blood pressure and diabetes as she sat in the heat waiting for access to cemetery records. Number 96 on the list, she was too bitter and angry to leave or give up. "They've opened old wounds," she said, then spoke the names buried there: her great-grandmother Ella Britt; her grandfather Robert Brown; her grandmother Blanche Brown. They've been buried there since the 1950s, she said. "They didn't think there'd be anyone here to connect the present to the past," Dean said. "I'm following up -- these are my loved ones." The more Dean thought about it, the angrier she got. "They threw the bodies to the side," she said. "Dogs and cats don't even get treated like that. They have a proper cemetery where you can go visit them. They threw our bodies to the side. I never thought I'd be going through this, never."
The Cook County sheriff's office set up an e-mail address for families who are concerned about loved ones who are buried at the cemetery: burroakcemeteryinvestigation@gmail.com.
Erika Slife, Alena Scarver, Cara Anthony and Georgia Garvey contributed to this report.
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