How Could Anyone Do This?
Friends and family stunned by Burr Oak cemetery charges
This combination of booking photos released Thursday, July 9, 2009 by the Cook County, Ill. Sheriff's Office shows Carolyn Towns, 49, Terrence Nick, 39, Keith Nicks, 45, all of Chicago, and Maurice Dailey, 61, of Robbins, Ill. All four were charged Thursday, July 9, 2009 in an elaborate scheme in which hundreds of corpses were dug up at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., a historic black cemetery near Chicago, and strewn in a weeded area or reburied with other bodies so that plots could be resold, authorities said. (AP Photo/Cook County Sheriff's Office)
By her family's account, Carolyn Towns has been a faithful member of the First Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church in Woodlawn since she was a child.
“She is a very good person,” her husband, Steven Towns, told the Sun-Times Friday.
It is not how prosecutors describe the alleged mastermind behind the grave-robbing scheme at Burr Oak Cemetery. The 49-year-old woman is charged with directing three co-workers to dump body parts, stack them and destroy headstones -- to clear cemetery space that may them as much as $300,0000.
Authorities say her accomplices were Maurice Dailey, 59, a backhoe operator; Keith Nicks, 45, the gravediggers’ foreman, and his brother Terrence Nicks, 39, a dump truck driver.
All four are in Cook County Jail, charged with one count each of felony dismembering a human body.
The Rev. Robert Cain, pastor of First Mount Calvary, told the Sun-Times the Towns’ family is distraught over the allegations.
“From what I know of her, I could never imagine that,” Cain said. “She’s a kind and helpful person in our church. Who knows what people are going through or what they are capable of doing?”
Records show the Townses were having financial problems, including tax liens and two bankruptcies since 2001.
“Prior to this thing happening, I knew that they had financial problems,” neighbor Lester Stanton said.
While authorities said the four looted the cemetery, Mary Wilson said Dailey wasn’t ever flashy with money in the 25 years she has known him. She doubted he was the one driving the scheme.
“Somebody had to mastermind that,” she said. “I don’t think they have the brains.”
Copyright SunTimes
Posted Tuesday, Jul 14, 2009 - 1:26 AM CST
