Jul 9, 2009 11:01 pm US/Central
Sheriff Faces Daunting Task With Cemetery Case
ALSIP, Ill. (CBS) ―
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Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart at the scene of Burr Oak Cemetery.
CBS
The scene is macabre. The scope is enormous. The magnitude daunting.
Now it's Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart's job to restore dignity and justice.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports on what the sheriff plans to do.
It wasn't part of the job description, Sheriff Tom Dart said Thursday, as he dealt with a nearly a thousand families and countless lost loved ones.
Yet he made time for all who approached him, having carefully planned the massive operation even as the secret six-week investigation was revealing a scam of unimaginable proportions.
"We originally went into it as a financial crime," he said. "We pretty quickly found out that financial crime was secondary."
"I was out here all day yesterday," he said. "When I was walking around, I was finding bones laying around out there."
Two weeks ago, Dart said, he brought in a renowned forensic expert. Just as the crime was obvious, the sheriff said, so were the criminals.
"You have general manager telling you everything's rosy, but all along is at the heart of what was wrong," the sheriff said.
Even though just four people have been charged, Dart's not willing to say he's got everyone.
"Some of the people that are talking to us, I'm not believing them," he said. "Now, do I have enough to where I can find them criminally culpable? Well, that's a different standard."
A big part of the investigation involves people coming in searching for the graves of loved ones. If they've been replaced by others, authorities will try to match the unidentified remains found with those who are missing. Dart says it's a daunting task.
"I'll be honest with you," he said, "I'll be stunned if we're not here for at least another month and a half."
Dart says he and his people are still trying to get their arms around the extent of the violation of people and their loved ones. The hardest part, he says, is comforting them and explain how a final resting place could turn out to be anything but peaceful.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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