ASPCA4EVER
Well-Known Member
Cemetery whistle-blower: ‘I ain’t a hero’
'I had my mouth closed too long,' he says of shady goings-on at Ill. site
updated 2:50 p.m. CT, Tues., July 21, 2009
ALSIP, Ill. - Willie Esper was just trying to get better at his job as a gravedigger when he unearthed a scandal.
Loose bones kept turning up as he practiced digging holes with a backhoe in a supposedly unused section of Burr Oak Cemetery, a historic black graveyard near Chicago. Esper refused to keep his mouth shut about the grisly things he saw, leading to the arrest of four cemetery workers accused of digging up and dumping hundreds of bodies and reselling their plots.
"I ain't a hero," said the 26-year-old whistle-blower, who came to Burr Oak more than a year ago. "I had my mouth closed too long."
In his first interview since the macabre scandal broke two weeks ago, Esper said he didn't plan to make a big deal about what he had found until another worker told him he had better keep quiet if he wanted to keep putting food on the table for his baby boy. He said he got especially angry when the fellow black employee referred to Esper's mixed-race child as an "Oreo."
"I just got tired of people threatening me," Esper told The Associated Press.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32043382/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/?gt1=43001
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Given this current 'economic fiasco' {8 years in the making} I don't think that I could blame this man for choosing to keep quiet...but given the nature of these events I sure wish he had been able to keep track of the names/dates/places that the dead were uprooted and dumped off site!!! But that would be expecting too much!
'I had my mouth closed too long,' he says of shady goings-on at Ill. site
updated 2:50 p.m. CT, Tues., July 21, 2009
ALSIP, Ill. - Willie Esper was just trying to get better at his job as a gravedigger when he unearthed a scandal.
Loose bones kept turning up as he practiced digging holes with a backhoe in a supposedly unused section of Burr Oak Cemetery, a historic black graveyard near Chicago. Esper refused to keep his mouth shut about the grisly things he saw, leading to the arrest of four cemetery workers accused of digging up and dumping hundreds of bodies and reselling their plots.
"I ain't a hero," said the 26-year-old whistle-blower, who came to Burr Oak more than a year ago. "I had my mouth closed too long."
In his first interview since the macabre scandal broke two weeks ago, Esper said he didn't plan to make a big deal about what he had found until another worker told him he had better keep quiet if he wanted to keep putting food on the table for his baby boy. He said he got especially angry when the fellow black employee referred to Esper's mixed-race child as an "Oreo."
"I just got tired of people threatening me," Esper told The Associated Press.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32043382/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/?gt1=43001
********************************
Given this current 'economic fiasco' {8 years in the making} I don't think that I could blame this man for choosing to keep quiet...but given the nature of these events I sure wish he had been able to keep track of the names/dates/places that the dead were uprooted and dumped off site!!! But that would be expecting too much!
