(ALSIP) Keith and Terrence Nicks crossed a line the devil wouldn’t even dare touch when they discarded human remains at the historic Burr Oak Cemetery as if it were trash, Cook County prosecutors said Wednesday.
“This is the face of the unrepentant,” Assistant State’s Attorney Nick Trutenko said, pointing an accusatory finger at Terrence Nicks, 44.
“This is the face of the guilty.”
Jurors agreed.
After roughly four hours of deliberations, Terrence Nicks, who proclaimed his innocence on the stand, was convicted of participating in a scheme to dig out skeletal fragments from graves, trash them and re-sell the burial sites to unsuspecting families at the Alsip site, the Sun-Times is reporting.
A separate jury later Wednesday night found 51-year-old Keith Nicks guilty of the same charges: desecration of human remains, removal of human remains and removal of gravestones or markers.
Keith Nicks, the cemetery’s grounds foreman, often guided his dump-truck driver sibling and backhoe operator Maurice Dailey to illegally double-stack graves and throw human remains on a mound of debris in the back of the cemetery, according to prosecutors, who presented 36 witnesses during the three-week double jury trial at the Bridgeview courthouse.
The men, along with cemetery manger Carolyn Towns, shattered and betrayed the trust of grieving survivors, Assistant State’s Attorney Matthew Thrun said in his closing arguments.
“This is a case about those people torn up. . . . Their identities only known to God,” Thrun said.
Defense attorneys said the brothers were set up by three other cemetery workers who were bitter because Keith Nicks wanted to discipline them for their insubordination and lackadaisical work ethic.
“They cut a deal to frame Keith Nicks,” defense attorney Tony Peraica said of Willie Esper Jr., Fred Stanback and Kenyatta Bridges. Burr Oak was “not well kept. There were problems. Is that Keith’s fault?”
Esper said there was an occasion when Terrence Nicks refused to dump the bones of the dead, evidence that he wasn’t one to desecrate the dead, the younger Nicks’ attorney James Fryman said.
However, Thrun noted that Terrence Nicks voluntarily told authorities where he dumped the remains following his arrest in the summer of 2009.
Prosecutors called Keith Nicks the “boss man” and “rogue leader” of the “gang of ghouls.”
Perhaps the most dramatic moment in Wednesday’s closing arguments came when Trutenko gave an impassioned rebuttal statement before Terrence Nicks’ jury.
“Grave robber!” the prosecutor screamed, glaring at Terrence Nicks as he described how the younger Nicks stole jewelry and money off fresh corpses.
Terrence Nicks was practically an “iceman,” Trutenko said.
At one point, Trutenko walked to the back of the courtroom and opened the door to loudly ask if anyone thought the grisly acts were acceptable.
“Who would say that’s OK?” the prosecutor asked, his voice trembling with emotion.
“Anybody at all?”
Keith and Terrence Nicks were taken into custody after Judge Joan Margaret O’Brien revoked their bail. The brothers face probation to up to seven years in prison.
Following the verdicts, Trutenko said the case was unique and the “heaviest burden” he and his team had faced in their careers because of the countless victims.
Top prosecutor Anita Alvarez said in a written statement that the Nicks’ actions “shocked the conscience of all our communities and showed the hideous and cruel lengths that people will resort to for financial gain.”
Peraica said he was disappointed with his client’s guilty verdicts and vowed to appeal.
Towns, 54, is currently serving a 12-year sentence for her role in the gruesome plot.
Dailey, 64, is awaiting trial.
–Sun-Times
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