Investigators dig in the same exact spot where workers reported finding human remains four years ago. Two of the workers say the scandal could have been uncovered many years ago if someone had just listened to them.
As the investigation trudges on at the Burr Oak Cemetery, two men who worked near there have come forward with their story in which they believe could have uncovered the scandal years ago.
The men were working a contracting job with Commonwealth Edison, moving power lines along Cicero Avenue four years ago, when they came upon a gruesome discovery.
"I started seeing something that didn’t look right and the guys out there had started finding skulls and obvious bones," Brian Beard, an electrical worker for ComEd said.
Another electrical worker, Russ Bausone, said he saw it too.
"Actually we saw arms, legs, sticking out of the ground,” Bausone said. "We saw caskets and we actually did see, at one time, we seen them dumping the bodies in front of us."
After their findings, the men reported the matter to Alsip police. They said their project was ordered shut down, but only temporarily.
"We were shut down, I think it was for ten days," Bausone said. "We were told it was going to be taken care of and we went back to work.”
On Tuesday, the FBI and Sheriffs Police were digging in the same exact spot Beard and Bausone claimed to have seen this going on. Cemetery workers tried to explain it away.
"What they explained to me was the body really doesn’t deteriorate completely in the ground so they got to bring it up and get the air to it," Beard said.
The search for remains began Tuesday, as the FBI and Sheriffs Police excavated the primary crime scene, sifting through what they had dug looking for any bones or other fragments which may explain how many bodies were dumped there.
The process has been a painstaking slow and one the workers contend would not be going on if someone had listened to them sooner.
"I would have surely thought someone would have got to the bottom of it," Beard said.
The Alsip police chief, who was not the police chief there four years ago, said he is going back through every contact his department has ever had with Burr Oak and he will pull the reports on this case to determine exactly how it was handled.
Authorities said they are now pursing more than 500 criminal leads in connection with the cemetery scandal.
