Another Visit To The Troubled Homewood Memorial Gardens Cemetery, And Attention From The Cook County Sheriff's Office
HOMEWOOD, Ill. (CBS) -- The Morning Insiders are pushing for answers about a troubled cemetery in the south suburbs.
A toppled tombstone is yet another example of disturbing conditions at Homewood Memorial Gardens. As CBS 2's Tim McNicholas reported Friday morning, even the Cook County Sheriff is taking notice of our recent story.
Homewood Memorial Gardens is the final resting place of tens of thousands of people.
"It's just unfortunate," said Cook County Sheriff's police Detective Sgt. Jason Moran. "I am responsible for death care industry complaints."
If you ask Moran, the dead at the cemetery deserve to rest in better conditions.
McNicholas: "Is that unusual, to have that many dirt graves, grassless graves?"
Moran: "Yes. The cemetery authority needs to be more careful and pay more attention to the grounds. These markers that tend to sink or holes opening up on the side of burials are care issues."
Moran saw our story about the sinking headstones and grassless graves. In one case, a hole in the ground even revealed a casket liner.
Moran wound up calling the state agency that investigates and oversees cemeteries.
"And the ones that I saw in your story, and some of the photographs that I've seen that you guys have sent, have been reported to them since," Moran said.
The state won't tell us what they're doing with that information and a spokesperson says they are probihited by law from doing so. But Moran, who investigated the cemetery in 2011 for improper burials, said he will be following up.
In the meantime, we decided to do a follow-up of our own. We spotted a tombstone toppled over just outside the main office.
Two weeks later, it was still there, so we showed our pictures to the groundskeeper, Rich LaFaire.
LaFaire: "We're waiting for adhesive for this one – got to have adhesive, or else it's going to fall right back off that foundation.
McNicholas: "How long does it take for that to get here?"
LaFaire: "Well, it should be here anytime, hopefully. I'll check on it, though."
The cemetery put new dirt over some of the graves after our first report. But two weeks after it aired, we found more sinking headstones, and another grave from this year with a hole so deep you can see something buried beneath.
LaFaire said they have ordered new machinery to help them.
"It's called a tamper. We could use that to stamp down the dirt a little bit more firmer, so it'll help avoid any more sinkage or seepage."
But Paul Falcon is worried his father's grave could end up like some of the dilapidated ones.
"He deserves a lot better," Falcon said.
He raised concerns to the staff about the dirt outline of his father's grave, and they apologized. But he said nothing had been done.
Falcon added that his sister seeded and sodded the grave herself because there wasn't any grass on it.
"That's what I wanted to do, you know, get ahead of it – and before it gets to the point where a lot of these other graves are," Falcon said.
The staff told Falcon they will put new dirt on that grave and reseed it in the spring. The groundskeeper told CBS 2 the staff is working hard every day to improve the cemetery.
Homewood Memorial Gardens has been on probation with the state since last year for failure to properly map out the grounds.
