Jul 13, 2009 10:08 pm US/Central
Burr Oak Hotline Flooded, Families Frustrated
Inquiries Can No Longer Be Made In Person As Investigation Continues
ALSIP, Ill. (CBS) ―
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People looking for information on loved ones buried at Burr Oak Cemetery can no longer make requests in person, either at the cemetery or nearby Eisenhower High School, where requests were being processed.
CBS
Burr Oak Cemetery, where four employees allegedly dug up corpses to resell plots for profit, will be closed at least until the end of the week.
About 20 FBI agents and 10 investigators from the Cook County Sherriff's office are mapping out the cemetery right now. They're in the labor intensive process of breaking down the cemetery into grids, using flags to mark each visible grave.
Even so, officials admit, they probably won't be able to identify all the remains. They have gotten more than 50,000 requests for help in finding a loved one.
And starting Monday those requests could no longer be submitted in person. As CBS 2's Jim Williams reports, the switch to only phone or e-mail requests has been frustrating for many.
Police officers directed a stream of cars into the Eisenhower High School parking lot. People came looking for answers, but found none.
Donna Reed, whose son is buried at Burr Oak, was among them.
'I'm trying my best to do this today, 'cause this is important to me," Reed said. "And I have to put closure to it. See, I don't have any closure right now."
Reed and others were greeted by sheriff's department employees who could only tell them what phone numbers to call or give them the Web site to file a formal inquiry into the status of a grave at Burr Oak.
Many had already tried to call the numbers but couldn't get through.
"I tried on the phone, then you get to voice mail and tell you the mail box is full," one woman told CBS 2.
It has been a painful and frustrating day.
"You couldn't get into the cemetery. Phone numbers are busy. I wanted some kind of answer to tell me what I needed to do to see that two brothers were still there and not disturbed," Romel Jamison said.
The sheriff's department says it has been overwhelmed with inquiries – 12,000 requests for information in person, 37,000 calls to the hotline and 4,000 e-mails.
Still, there was a measure of understanding from some worried family members of those buried at Burr Oaks.
"I am understanding because they say they have to treat it as a crime scene so can't do nothing but respect that, so gotta give them enough time to do what they have to do," Donna Ware said.
You may wonder why people some are just now starting to inquire, or showed up at the cemetery Monday, when this story broke last week. Two mothers who have children buried there told CBS 2 they were simply not emotionally ready to begin this process until now.
But that's not the only traumatic result of this scheme.
"I've only got three that are kind of in the state of limbo right now," said Chicago funeral director Augustus Cage.
He says those families all have plots at Burr Oak and need to lay loved ones to rest. Cage says they and others have two options. Buy another plot at their expense, or store the remains until the cemetery reopens.
But he thinks people won't likely be lined up to have their families interred at Burr Oak any longer.
Credibility, credibility, credibility. Integrity, integrity, integrity. I think this will go down in flames," Cage said.
CBS 2's Jim Williams and Dana Kozlov contributed to this report.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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