Burr Oak Grounds Foreman Denies Desecrating Human Remains
CHICAGO (STMW) -- In a firm voice, the former grounds foreman at the historic Burr Oak Cemetery denied Tuesday that he desecrated human remains and insisted that he pushed management to improve the dilapidated south suburban site, the Sun-Times is reporting.
Keith Nicks testified he had always been "strict" with following the rules and regulations of the Alsip business and in making sure the families who were burying their loved ones "came first."
Cook County prosecutors, however, argue that Nicks, his younger brother, Terrence, and two others hardly kept anyone's feelings in mind when they engaged in a money-making scheme to illegally double-stack graves and trash skeletal fragments in old burial spaces to make way for fresh corpses.
"No . . . never," Keith Nicks, repeatedly testified in the Bridgeview courtroom, maintaining that he did nothing wrong and that authorities fabricated his statement following his July 2009 arrest.
Groundhogs and possum often dig up bones at Burr Oak, but whenever Nicks laid eyes on remains, he said he would order that they be buried back in their original spot or at the very least stored in a protected container.
Nicks said he never moved headstones and markers or asked his subordinates to dump bones of the deceased with the garbage.
"That's a no-no," Nicks, 51, said during nearly four hours on the stand Tuesday.
Nicks said if anyone scattered the 1,500 bones across the cemetery, it was his three disgruntled underlings, who worked at the cemetery.
Nicks grew defiant, describing the "insubordinate" trio who caught wind that he wanted to discipline them.
"I know what you're trying to do, but I got something for you," Nicks said one of three threatened.
Nicks said he never saw the three deliberately plant the human remains but was sure they did it. "I didn't see them doing it but I know who was doing it," he said.
During cross examination, Nicks admitted to prosecutor Eric Leafblad that he didn't tell the dozens of officers investigating the probe that his nemeses were an instrumental part of the gruesome plot.
Nicks, who was wearing a gray suit, choked up when he recalled the morning he was arrested in front of his children at his South Side home.
He also dabbed his eyes, recounting how he was given the responsibility of preserving Emmett Till's old casket, which was found rusting in the back of a shack at Burr Oak.
Nicks said the cemetery was often fined and that'd he always tell then manager Carolyn Towns of the unacceptable conditions there. But Towns didn't want to shell out too much money, Nicks said, adding that he personally paid for workers' spades and rakes.
"I told her we got graves where there shouldn't be graves. You couldn't keep up with who was buried where. And we had drainage problems," Nicks said.
Closing arguments in the Nicks brothers' double jury trial are expected Wednesday.
Towns, 54, is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for her key role in the crimes.
Backhoe operator Maurice Dailey, 64, is awaiting trial.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2015. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
