200 Bones, Fragments Recovered at Burr Oak

ID of most of remains unlikely

Nearly 200 pieces of evidence, nearly all of it human bones or bone fragment, have been collected from the grounds of the historic Burr Oak Cemetery, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday.

"Right now, we are looking as far down as eight feet," said Robert Grant, the FBI Special Agent in Charge. "Based on other evidence we're collecting during the course of the investigation, we may be required to dig deeper."

Since the desecration at the cemetery blew into the mainstream earlier this month, employees and at least one of the suspects have been guiding investigators to where bodies may be hidden.

The former acting manager of the cemetery, Trudy Foushee, said last week that she would regularly drive the property and never saw anything amiss.

"I don't think, under anyone's analysis, this would be the way someone should have a cemetery run," Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said Tuesday, bristling at Foushee's assessment.

And he reacted strongly to her suggestion that the sheriff and his men had not been availing themselves of her help.

"When we asked her, 'Will you please come out?' that was not met positively," Dart said.

On a dim note, investigators said prospects have dimmed severely that any of the remains they are now finding will ever be identified.

"We don't even know who are precisely in the universe to start with," Dart said.

The problem, investigators said, is that they don't know who they're finding because they don't know who they're looking for to begin with.

"Take, say, the 200 pieces. If we found no more pieces today, and try to separate these pieces and make them matches to people, is almost impossible," Grant said.

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