'It's going to be getting worse' - With cemetery records in disarray, authorities finally find 2 key maps/FBI: It'll be tough identifying Burr Oak rem

'It's going to be getting worse' - With cemetery records in disarray, authorities finally find 2 key maps
By Rex W. Huppke and Jeff Coen
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
July 12, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-grave-robbers-new-12jul12,0,2962026.story


Investigators said Saturday two key maps are missing at Burr Oak Cemetery: one for the second swath of the graveyard where human remains have been found and another for a section where infants were buried, described in office documents as "Baby Land."

Outside the gates of what is now a 150-acre crime scene, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said navigating the cemetery's wildly disorganized records of more than 100,000 grave sites is "like trying to read hieroglyphics." That, he said, is making the task of sorting out what has happened at the defiled site even more daunting.

"The record-keeping here is outrageous," Dart said.

Authorities said they now believe a minimum of 300 bodies were excavated and tossed in a "dump area," making room for more plots to be sold. Four people, including the former manager of the cemetery at 127th Street and Kostner Avenue near Alsip, each face an initial charge of dismembering a human body.

Hundreds of families streamed into a holding area just inside the cemetery gates Saturday, submitting details about those buried on the site. People waited with heads bowed, some grasping their chests and others praying, hoping those they had laid to rest had not been disturbed.

"One of my fears is that I may never have closure or peace to know where my family's bodies are," said Jennifer Gyimah, who added she has about 40 relatives buried at Burr Oak. "You think they're at rest. As a living human being, you feel you at least can give your relatives dignity in death. And now I feel that dignity has been shattered."

Dart said he wished he could tell families that the confusion at the cemetery would be sorted out, but the sprawling site and its records are in such disarray that he is not confident that will happen. Dart said the facility will be closed well into the week, as investigators canvass the entire property.

A court-ordered grave exhumation Saturday highlighted the confusion at Burr Oak.

A relative who had become suspicious of the cemetery well before news of the problems broke believed his loved one may have been buried on top of another casket. When the grave was dug up, sheriff's deputies found nothing unusual at that site, but did notice a concrete vault adjacent to the grave. That vault had no marker above it, and no record of who is buried there could be found.

Dart said it is possible that investigators will need to dig in certain parts of the cemetery to determine the scope of the problem and possibly uncover other undocumented graves.

He said there are parts of the property where the ground is built up suspiciously higher than other parts. Headstones stand over graves that records show belong to someone else, he said.

"We honestly don't know where we're going to end up here," Dart said. "I fear it's going to be getting worse."

Following protocols used for investigations into plane crash and bombings, federal investigators on Monday are expected to set up a search grid at the site and slowly begin the process of locating remains.

At this point, the FBI does not plan to use DNA testing to help identify the remains. FBI spokesman Ross Rice said more than 20 FBI agents and two anthropologists will work to determine whether the bones and bone fragments recovered at Burr Oak are human.

"Just to do that will be a major effort," Rice said.

Rice said identifying bones might be impossible, as it is unlikely researchers will have DNA samples from those buried in the cemetery and some DNA material may have degraded since many of the bones have been exposed to the elements for years.

Officials said the sheer amount of remains likely will complicate the effort.

Even if the FBI eventually tries to identify the remains through DNA testing, it could be impossible to pull off, Rice said.

After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, law-enforcement teams trying to identify human remains went to victims' homes to collect hair and other samples for DNA analysis, but at Burr Oak, some of the disturbed graves are believed to be half a century old.

To make identifications, each bone or fragment would have to be tested. A DNA profile from the recovered material would then have to be compared with a database of profiles from relatives of those buried in the cemetery, sources said.

Colette Wilkerson was at Burr Oak on Saturday giving investigators more information about her parents, who are buried there. She had visited the cemetery when authorities were allowing families in, and found that the headstones over the graves of her mother and father were gone, replaced with markers bearing different names.

"I can't describe it," Wilkerson said. "You come to see your mother's grave and find someone else is buried there.

"My mother never saw her grandchildren, so I would bring them here. Now I have nowhere to take them."

Tribune reporters Lolly Bowean, Matthew Walberg and Lauren R. Harrison contributed to this report.

rhuppke@tribune.com

jcoen@tribune.com




FBI: It'll be tough identifying Burr Oak remains
By Lolly Bowean, Kristen Schorsch, Jane Fritsch, Kim Janssen
July 13, 2009 3:54 PM
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/07/carolyn-towns-49-the-former.html


FBI officials said today they held out little hope of identifying the remains of all of the bodies found at Burr Oak Cemetery as they began the arduous process of tracking down desecrated graves and locating possibly hundreds of bodies that were dug up and dumped.

The FBI set up a mobile command center truck at the Alsip cemetery this morning. About 20 FBI agents and 10 investigators from the Cook County sheriff's office began combing the area which they termed a crime scene, FBI Spokesman Ross Rice said at a press conference outside of the cemetery gates.

Unlike previous disasters where names and identities of survivors were available to compare DNA samples from bodies, the cemetery records at Burr Oak are in such disarray they don't know who was buried there, Rice said.

"It may not be possible to identify the remains ... in a perfect world, yes we would like to identify every remain and bring closure to the families," said Rice. "Here we don't know who's been unearthed and who was buried here based on the records.''

Among the FBI Investigators is a forensic anthropologist from the FBI's lab at Quantico, Va. Investigators began cataloging the remains found in a 1,600-square-foot by 1,200-square-foot area of the cemetery.

They began by breaking down the area into different grids and then removing debris and weeds from the area. Flags and ropes have been placed throughout the cemetery to aid the grid search.

Tuesday morning, sheriff's officers and other employees, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, will canvass the entire cemetery, according to sheriff's spokesman Steve Patterson.

The sheriff's office is also using people sentenced to community service to clean tombstones and cemetery grounds, "not only because it's the right thing to do, since it appears much of the cemetery was neglected, but to also assist in our documenting of each grave site," Patterson said.

No remains have been moved yet, but remains are scattered throughout the area, some visible to the naked eye, Rice said. He said the role of the FBI is to catalog the information to be used by prosecutors in a criminal proceedings.

"It's going to take a long time,'' Rice said.

Sheriff's officials say the cemetery will be closed to the public for at least the rest of the week but could reopen next week.

Around 12:40 p.m. today, a freelance photographer was arrested by sheriff's police as he stood on a ladder and tried to scale a fence to get into the cemetery, Patterson said. Frank Polich, of Burr Ridge, was charged with obstruction of justice for entering a crime scene.

Detectives believe at least 300 bodies were illegally exhumed and dumped in a mass grave so their plots could be resold, but thousands of dead remain unaccounted for by their families because records have been destroyed.

As of noon today, the sheriff's office had received the following requests for information about loved ones buried at Burr Oak: 12,000 requests filed in-person; 37,500 calls to hotlines; and 4,000 emails.

"That's 53,500 total requests for help in finding a loved one in a cemetery with more than 100,000 burial plots," Patterson said.

On Sunday alone, 1,000 relatives filled out forms with their buried family members' details at a drop-in center set up by the Cook County sheriff's department. People continued to show up at Burr Oak this morning.

Lutia Payne said she has nine relatives buried there and couldn't get through on the hotline Dart's office set up for family members. Officials said they are working on getting more lines.

Cook County board president Todd Stroger announced today that three "peer support" centers would be offering help as soon as this afternoon at the county's three public hospitals: Stroger, Provident and Oak Forest.

The centers would be staffed by the American Red Cross and Salvation Army, which would provide a sympathetic ear and direct people to other programs, including bereavement services, pastoral care or mental health professionals.

More information on the peer support centers is available at 312-603-8180 or, later this afternoon, at www.cookcountygov.com.

Patterson said overwhelmed investigators working 16-hour days have been "bogged down" by the cemetery's disastrous record-keeping. Police "can't make heads or tails out of many of these records," he said.

The sheer scale of the outrage has even seen a "significant increase of visitors" asking questions about their relatives at the nearby Lincoln Cemetery, where there are no allegations of wrongdoing, said Jennifer Roberts, a cemetery spokeswoman.

Virginia Davis-Stephens, who visited the graves of her son and nephew at Lincoln Cemetery Sunday, said her conscience had been pricked by the Burr Oak revelations. "It's been a year since I was out here, and it just made me want to pay my respects," she said.

Carolyn Towns, 49, the former manager at the cemetery, is accused of masterminding the excavation of 200 to 300 bodies that were tossed in a "dump area" of the cemetery so their plots could be resold for cash. Towns and groundskeepers Keith Nicks, 45, Terrence Nicks, 39, all of Chicago, and Maurice Dailey, 59, of Robbins, each face a felony charge of dismembering a human body, and could get 30 years in prison.

The Cook County sheriff's office has set up an e-mail address for families who are concerned about loved ones who are buried at the cemetery: burroakcemeteryinvestigation@gmail.com. Family members also may call a sheriff's hotline on Burr Oak, 800-942-1950 or, if calling from a local phone, (708) 865-6070.

The Sheriff's office also is providing updates on its Web site, www.cookcountysheriff.org