A pile of stone, which police say is made up of broken burial vaults and headstones, sits near a grave in Burr Oak cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. (Chicago Sun-Times Scott Olson/Getty Images)If there were a 911-like number for the Political Correctness Police, I would tell you to start dialing.
First of all, unlike others covering this story who are appalled (or pretending to be, as it's the politically correct thing to do) and calling this "a very disturbing story," I'm neither outraged nor disturbed. Surprised, even shocked? Yes, but not scandalized. Secondly, as it's often the case, I feel compelled to play devil's advocate.
Among today's top stories is the discovery that the remains of some 300 people buried at a historic cemetery near Chicago were disinterred and dumped in a mass grave or pushed deeper into the ground so that other bodies could be buried atop them in a grave-reselling scheme concocted by four individuals who ran the cemetery.
I don't need to tell you--because you can guess or because how else would people react?--that everyone is upset about this : the relatives of the dead, the community, the authorities, politicians, and--how could he miss this?--Rev. Jesse Jackson, who apparently unglued himself from the Jackson family to stick his nose some place else.
(Here we go again...why is he automatically a spokesman? Does he get paid for showing up whenever and wherever one or more African Americans are involved in anything that will guarantee him some air time on CNN? Like the moth to the flame, he finds a microphone, expresses his usual outrage, and there you have it. Ugh.)
Back to the cemetery...
Why is this such a big story? No one has been killed or raped or tortured or robbed...no constitutional rights have been violated, no bogus war has been declared, no politician has been caught with his pants down, no bomb has exploded other than the usual suicide bombs in the Middle East.
A bunch of bones were moved. So?
So it would suck, I suppose, to find out that you've been bringing flowers to a grave for years and kneeling down to speak to your long-gone loved one during yearly, monthly, weekly or daily visits only to find out that he or she isn't there alone or isn't there at all.
But here's the thing: he or she was never there--only the decaying organic matter of a corpse. The person was never there--right? So what if a few bones were moved?
Here's what we know so far:
Four cemetery workers at the Burr Oak Cemetery in the suburb of Alsip south of Chicago dug up an estimated 300 graves and made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit from the resale of the plots.
Carolyn Towns, 49, Keith Nicks, 45, Terrence Nicks, 39, and Maurice Dailey, 59, were charged Thursday with one count each of dismembering a human body, a Class X felony for which they could serve six to 30 years in prison. Bail for Towns, described as the ringleader, was set at $250,000, while the others' was set at $200,000.
(Clockwise) Carolyn Towns, Terrence Nicks, Keith Nicks and Maurice Dailey (Chicago Sun-Times)
Investigators reportedly found a pile of bones from more than 100 bodies uncovered in an overgrown and fenced off area of the cemetery.
The scheme, said to have been in operation for at least four years, appears to have targeted older, unmarked graves that had not been visited in a long time.
"Each step you take you find more bones, more remains," Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said at a press conference today.
An investigation into the matter began six weeks ago when the cemetery's owner--Perpetua Holdings of Illinois, a subsidiary of a Tucson, Arizona-based funeral home and cemetery development company--told police an employee with a guilty conscience revealed the money-making scheme that had allegedly been going on for as long as four years.
Dart said it would take weeks, if not months, before it will be known who the bodies are, adding that 30 to 40 FBI agents "from all over the world" who specialize in identifying remains will arrive Monday to work on the case.
One of the biggest problems investigators are facing is that cemetery records appear to have been destroyed and there's nowhere else they can go for documentation because "there's no regulation whatsoever in this industry," Dart said.
Towns allegedly took cash from families who came to the cemetery to bury loved ones, filled out paperwork on the new burials, and then destroyed them so that there would be no record of the transactions. Then she would tell the others to exhume the remains from the graves, dump them in a mass grave on the northwest side of the cemetery, and smash the headstone into pieces.
"This crime is a whole new dimension that shows us how far people will go for financial gain," Cook County's State Attorney Anita Alvarez told reporters.
The Cemetery Care and Burial Trust Department, a division of the Illinois Comptroller's office, reportedly said it has received complaints in recent years about poor upkeep at Burr Oak, including sunken or tilting gravestones, unmanageable roads, drainage problems and weeds, AP reported.
Burr Oak is the final resting place of some notorious African-Americans, including lynching victim Emmett Till, blues singers Willie Dixon, Dinah Washington and Otis Spann, as well as Harlem Globetrotter Inman Jackson, AP reported.
I'm scratching my head because I just can't relate to being hysterical about this. Confused? Yes. Pissed off? Absolutely. These dirtbags messed with the remains of someone I cared about without permission, not because these had to be moved but to profit from it. What I find most outrageous is the scam and its invasive and deceptive nature.
At the same time I question how realistic it is to expect to bury every person that ever lived in a piece of land set aside for that purpose, never to be "disturbed." I can't elaborate on this because I, like most people, don't know how these things work.
I also find it ironic that often the more religious people show the most indignation about graves being disturbed when they're the ones supposed to believe that the body is nothing but a husk that houses the soul for a short time on Earth. So why cry over a husk?
Maybe there is no separation after all. Maybe the body is the person.
Maybe there's no soul. And the essence of that person is truly gone. Maybe there's no afterlife, and the remains is all that remains.
Deep inside, something in us must be hanging on to that concept; otherwise, people or machines unearthing corpses or trampling over what is left of a person we once knew wouldn't bother us--would it?
News sources: CNN, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, The Associated Press, NPR
Copyright © 2009, Primetime Oracle
All Rights Reserved
First of all, unlike others covering this story who are appalled (or pretending to be, as it's the politically correct thing to do) and calling this "a very disturbing story," I'm neither outraged nor disturbed. Surprised, even shocked? Yes, but not scandalized. Secondly, as it's often the case, I feel compelled to play devil's advocate.
Among today's top stories is the discovery that the remains of some 300 people buried at a historic cemetery near Chicago were disinterred and dumped in a mass grave or pushed deeper into the ground so that other bodies could be buried atop them in a grave-reselling scheme concocted by four individuals who ran the cemetery.
I don't need to tell you--because you can guess or because how else would people react?--that everyone is upset about this : the relatives of the dead, the community, the authorities, politicians, and--how could he miss this?--Rev. Jesse Jackson, who apparently unglued himself from the Jackson family to stick his nose some place else.
(Here we go again...why is he automatically a spokesman? Does he get paid for showing up whenever and wherever one or more African Americans are involved in anything that will guarantee him some air time on CNN? Like the moth to the flame, he finds a microphone, expresses his usual outrage, and there you have it. Ugh.)
Back to the cemetery...
Why is this such a big story? No one has been killed or raped or tortured or robbed...no constitutional rights have been violated, no bogus war has been declared, no politician has been caught with his pants down, no bomb has exploded other than the usual suicide bombs in the Middle East.
A bunch of bones were moved. So?
So it would suck, I suppose, to find out that you've been bringing flowers to a grave for years and kneeling down to speak to your long-gone loved one during yearly, monthly, weekly or daily visits only to find out that he or she isn't there alone or isn't there at all.
But here's the thing: he or she was never there--only the decaying organic matter of a corpse. The person was never there--right? So what if a few bones were moved?
Here's what we know so far:
Four cemetery workers at the Burr Oak Cemetery in the suburb of Alsip south of Chicago dug up an estimated 300 graves and made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit from the resale of the plots.
Carolyn Towns, 49, Keith Nicks, 45, Terrence Nicks, 39, and Maurice Dailey, 59, were charged Thursday with one count each of dismembering a human body, a Class X felony for which they could serve six to 30 years in prison. Bail for Towns, described as the ringleader, was set at $250,000, while the others' was set at $200,000.
(Clockwise) Carolyn Towns, Terrence Nicks, Keith Nicks and Maurice Dailey (Chicago Sun-Times) Investigators reportedly found a pile of bones from more than 100 bodies uncovered in an overgrown and fenced off area of the cemetery.
The scheme, said to have been in operation for at least four years, appears to have targeted older, unmarked graves that had not been visited in a long time.
"Each step you take you find more bones, more remains," Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said at a press conference today.
An investigation into the matter began six weeks ago when the cemetery's owner--Perpetua Holdings of Illinois, a subsidiary of a Tucson, Arizona-based funeral home and cemetery development company--told police an employee with a guilty conscience revealed the money-making scheme that had allegedly been going on for as long as four years.
Dart said it would take weeks, if not months, before it will be known who the bodies are, adding that 30 to 40 FBI agents "from all over the world" who specialize in identifying remains will arrive Monday to work on the case.
One of the biggest problems investigators are facing is that cemetery records appear to have been destroyed and there's nowhere else they can go for documentation because "there's no regulation whatsoever in this industry," Dart said.
Towns allegedly took cash from families who came to the cemetery to bury loved ones, filled out paperwork on the new burials, and then destroyed them so that there would be no record of the transactions. Then she would tell the others to exhume the remains from the graves, dump them in a mass grave on the northwest side of the cemetery, and smash the headstone into pieces.
"This crime is a whole new dimension that shows us how far people will go for financial gain," Cook County's State Attorney Anita Alvarez told reporters.
The Cemetery Care and Burial Trust Department, a division of the Illinois Comptroller's office, reportedly said it has received complaints in recent years about poor upkeep at Burr Oak, including sunken or tilting gravestones, unmanageable roads, drainage problems and weeds, AP reported.
Burr Oak is the final resting place of some notorious African-Americans, including lynching victim Emmett Till, blues singers Willie Dixon, Dinah Washington and Otis Spann, as well as Harlem Globetrotter Inman Jackson, AP reported.
"This is reprehensible if it's true," said Simeon Wright, a cousin of Till, said. "I've got several generations of my family buried there, and I've never had any problems. ... But this is a pretty ghoulish story."
Update: Authorities discovered Emmett Till’s original casket in a dilapidated garage at the cemetery filled with lawn care equipment and piles of stuff. There was wildlife living inside the casket, Dart said. Till, 14, was killed in August 1955 in Mississippi after he reportedly whistled at a white woman.
Rev. Jesse Jackson slammed the grave re-sellers: "There should be no bail for them. There should be a special place in hell for these grave thieves who have done so much to harm to these families."
He added that "we" (whoever that is) will be working closely with the families and the FBI. Doing what? Forensics?
I'm scratching my head because I just can't relate to being hysterical about this. Confused? Yes. Pissed off? Absolutely. These dirtbags messed with the remains of someone I cared about without permission, not because these had to be moved but to profit from it. What I find most outrageous is the scam and its invasive and deceptive nature.
At the same time I question how realistic it is to expect to bury every person that ever lived in a piece of land set aside for that purpose, never to be "disturbed." I can't elaborate on this because I, like most people, don't know how these things work.
I also find it ironic that often the more religious people show the most indignation about graves being disturbed when they're the ones supposed to believe that the body is nothing but a husk that houses the soul for a short time on Earth. So why cry over a husk?
Maybe there is no separation after all. Maybe the body is the person.
Maybe there's no soul. And the essence of that person is truly gone. Maybe there's no afterlife, and the remains is all that remains.
Deep inside, something in us must be hanging on to that concept; otherwise, people or machines unearthing corpses or trampling over what is left of a person we once knew wouldn't bother us--would it?
News sources: CNN, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, The Associated Press, NPR
Copyright © 2009, Primetime Oracle
All Rights Reserved
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