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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Body Stacking Alleged at Second Illinois Cemetery

CHICAGO (CN) - A family with three generations buried at Mount Glenwood Cemetery in Glenwood say that workers there have been stacking bodies and double-selling grave plots.

A former gravedigger at Mount Glenwood said he was told to bury up to three pine boxes in one grave plot, according to the complaint in Cook County Court. He said that at time he had to use a "construction backhoe" to squeeze all the bodies into a vault, the suit says.

The family says they were visiting graves at Mount Glenwood when they saw that a headstone was missing for two relatives who had been buried bi-level as planned. Mount Glenwood managers told them the headstone had sunk into the ground and promised to unearth it, the family says. They say that when the headstone reappeared, the ground was undisturbed and staff at the cemetery had moved another headstone to make space for their relatives' headstone.

The family says that their relatives' burial plot and the neighboring plot overlapped, and that Mount Glenwood had "double sold the burial plots," leaving them to wonder if their relatives were really buried there.

The family says Mount Glenwood had tried to sell their relatives' plot to a third party, claiming that it was empty. According to news reports, a human bone was found lying on the ground at the cemetery last week.

The family alleges breach of contract, trespass, conversion, emotional distress, fraud and violations of the Illinois Cemetery Protection Act against Mount Glenwood Memory Gardens. They also seek confirmation of the whereabouts of their relatives' bodies.

It's the second Illinois cemetery accused of irregularities this month. Several class actions and individual complaint accused Burr Oak Cemetery of digging up and moving as many as 300 bodies in the historic black cemetery in Alsip.

The family in the latest case is represented by Bardia Fard of the Acumen Law Group.

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