Facing East (2019) - full transcript

[pouring wine]

[glasses clinking]

[light haunting music]

Mr. Hillerich.

[light haunting music]

[multiple voices speaking]

[Bob] Right on top of the
dirt pile in plain view,

in everybody's sight
was a skull intact

and I went back and
told the supervisor,

I said hey man, you've
gotta come look at this.

He said, "Cover
it up with a tarp"



"and put it back in the hole."

Here's what's happening,
we're going out there

and we're having to
hide skulls with tarps,

so these family
members will not see

that there's other
bodies in the dirt,

that's going to be
refilled into the grave,

there's lots of
bones and bodies.

I'd heard stories

about how they were finding
bones in different places.

I did contact the
Attorney General,

at that point I was
a stay-at-home Mom,

so I was able to put
some time into it

and I remember contacting
the Attorney General

and he did go down
to check the grave



and said that if he's
there, if that was him,

he was only buried inches down,

but he couldn't
guarantee that either

and so at that point I really
did just came to terms with it

and just still continue
to not go down there

and celebrate his
life in other ways.

I mean, I was shocked,
I was devastated,

I mean, to know that
possibly all the loved ones

was buried on top of my
loved one, which is my Mom,

so that was quite devastating.

He did not purchase that plot

knowing that he was gonna have
other people on top of him.

It's actually
known coast to coast

as the nation's most
grossly abused cemetery,

I mean, you Google Eastern
Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky,

you're gonna find an
article from the LA Times

or a newspaper in New York

talking about the horrible
things that went on.

I mean, there are people
who still own plots,

they're supposed to be empty,
but they're probably not

and I mean, you can't really
make that right honestly.

And you had hundreds and
thousands of family members

coming up wanting to know
once this broke news,

is my family buried
with somebody else?

He pulled out a loaded
.38 caliber revolver

and stuck it in my face

probably no more than a
foot or two away from me

right between the eyes,

this guy was easily in his 70s,

if he wasn't in his early 80s

and I could see the chambers
were loaded on the pistol.

It's part of my faith, we
bury the dead with dignity

and that did not happen.

You know, they
walked him out of it

and I thought no, this is
not right, this is not right,

they're gonna walk, ain't
nothing's going to be done.

There's just bones everywhere,

the joke was when we got the
investigation going full blown,

you couldn't swing a dead
cat in Eastern Cemetery

without finding a
disturbed burial.

We had the bare
bones of the story

and then as we kept
working, we kept uncovering

more and more scraps
and more and more scraps

and it's a much,
much bigger story

than I think anybody
could've imagined.

When you would go there,
it's like that place,

just it wanted help, like
it was begging for help.

[multiple voices speaking]

[mellow country music]

♪ Yeah, there's
holes in the ground ♪

♪ Yeah, where the
cars passed by ♪

♪ Yeah, there's
holes in the ground ♪

♪ Yeah, where
they're piled high ♪

♪ Piled high

♪ So where's your
angel of redemption ♪

♪ Way up in the sky

♪ So now where's those
good old intentions ♪

♪ Yeah, 'cause the
bones don't lie ♪

♪ The bones don't lie

♪ The bones don't lie

♪ Another shot of whiskey

♪ And another shot of ale

♪ Another nail
through the casket ♪

♪ Another lonely day

♪ So drop an egg
into the basket ♪

♪ The hair of the dog,
you're tisky tasking ♪

♪ Here we go down
to the bottom ♪

♪ Here we go where
the bones don't lie ♪

♪ So where's those
angels of redemption ♪

♪ Way up in the sky

♪ So now where's those
good old intentions ♪

♪ Yeah, 'cause the
bones don't lie ♪

♪ The bones don't lie

♪ The bones don't lie

[multiple voices speaking]

[Narrator] Eastern Cemetery
consists of 29.6 acres of land

and is located in the
Irish Hill neighborhood

of Louisville, Kentucky.

Founded in 1843 by two
Methodist churches,

Eastern and its sister cemeteries,
Greenwood and Shardein

were owned by the
Louisville Crematory

and Cemetery Company
for 145 years.

Following an investigation by
the Attorney General's Office

in 1989, the company
ceased operations

and charges including over
burial and grave desecration

were brought against
three of its officials.

Only about 16,000 gravestones

can be found in
Eastern Cemetery,

but records exist for over
138,000 burials there.

Some sections have been
re-gridded and reused over and over

and some individual graves

had been buried as
many as eight times.

The defunct Cemetery
Company was placed

on a court order
receivership until 2001,

when Maurice Phillips was
removed from the position

following allegations that
he had abandoned his duties

and mismanaged cemetery funds.

You know, when I first
went over there in 1974,

I saw these sunken graves

and so I was
wondering about that

and I talked to my predecessor

and then other
people at Cave Hill

and the reason that happened
is because they didn't require

a concrete vault for the casket.

At Eastern Cemetery
they would charge people

and get paid to put
the concrete vault in,

but most of the time
they wouldn't put 'em in,

the reason they
wouldn't put 'em in

is because they knew they'd
be digging there again

in the not so distant future.

So as I go through
the records again,

I'm doing the research
with the records,

this is under the court order,

I'm acting at
checking the graves

and I wanna find out what
kind of paperwork do we have

and I started seeing
this notation, OG, OG, OG

consistently throughout the
records and it's Old Grave,

they're burying
people in old graves.

The casket decomposes,
there's no family members,

no monument, no flowers
on Mother's Day or Easter

and so they would
reuse that grave space.

And at some point they had
10 years' worth of graves

that hadn't been visited,

so they reconciled
that with the maps

and they said okay, section
A, row 26 through row 32,

there's only two people over
there that have been visited,

so let's go on and clear
all the stones out of there

and resell them.

Starting in the 1850s,

they systemically start
reselling entire sections,

they sell individual lots
over and over and over again,

it's an incredibly complex

and they kept multiple
sets of books.

But like I said, we now,

the standard for burial is
1,000 to 1100 bodies per acre,

it's a 30-acre cemetery,

that's what, 30,000 to
40,000 bodies, right,

we right now were not done yet,

have 138,000 recorded
burials in Eastern Cemetery.

[Narrator] Eastern Cemetery
is home to more than 100,000

unmarked and disturbed
burials of individuals,

who entrusted the care
of their final remains

to a business which
considered them expendable.

As early as 1858,
records indicate

multiple burials
in the same grave.

The practice of over burial
and resale of occupied graves

became standard procedure
for the company,

until cemetery worker,
Bob Allen reported it

to the Kentucky Attorney
General's Office in 1989.

So Bob Allen, when
he went to work there,

he said that these people didn't
hide what they were doing,

they weren't out there in the
middle of the night doing it

like I'd always thought,
like you didn't wanna think.

He said that they did
it open, plain as day,

never made excuses, never told
anybody to cover anything up,

it's just how business was done.

[Narrator] In the years
following the investigation,

Eastern Cemetery was abandoned,

its grounds had
become overgrown,

gravestones had been
destroyed or stolen

and the chapel,
garage and stone vault

had been broken into and
vandalized repeatedly.

I think they had the urns,
where you could stick flowers

and of course back then you
bought great quality of things

and he has marble,
he has the marble

and the brass and
things had been taken,

my uncle who lays
there next to him,

his things have been removed

and it was so decayed
because right in the middle,

I have a cousin right there,

but we were unable to
put a marker there,

because the ground was so
trashed up and decayed,

so there's an unmarked
grave of a relative there

right in the middle of them.

Like Mother's Day,
Memorial Day Weekend,

my father would have
to take his weed eater

and make me a path,

that's the only way I would
be able to find where she was,

he would go first and
then he would tell me,

"I made you a path, so
as soon as you pull in,

"park on the side, get
out and you'll see my path"

"and that will lead you
to where she's buried."

And he actually went
through the files,

that they still had inside

before the building
was bricked over

and pulled out index cards

and tried to lead us
in the right direction,

even though it was a
complete mess out there

and we did end up finding her
Dad, which was my Grandpa,

Hewart, but was unable
to find anybody else.

[Andy] Nobody's here,
nobody's doing anything,

you've got this huge
cemetery right in the middle

of Louisville's
historic district

they we're supposedly
so proud of

and look at it, it's an
embarrassment, it's a shambles.

[Narrator] The
care of those at rest

in these neglected cemeteries

was left up to their
families and loved ones,

who were taken advantage of

in one of the most difficult
times of their lives.

My husband and I are just
local amateur historians,

we've been all over the city

and after a visit to Cave
Hill one day we said, oh look,

right across the wall there's
a whole other cemetery,

how do you even get into it?

Figured out how to go
around and get into it

and we were expecting more
of what we've just seen,

you know, manicured lawns
and landscapes, trees,

a beautiful cemetery and
it was not that at all,

it was really heartbreaking.

A lot of the same names
on both sides of the wall

and yet you go from perpetual
care to neglect and vandalism.

My guys were
just standing there

and the Eastern employees

didn't realize that
my men were there.

So they dug down, hit a grave,
maybe a 20-year old grave,

there was a thigh bone and
they thought it was funny,

so they just threw it over
the wall into Cave Hill.

[Narrator] A red
brick wall stretches

along the southeast border
of Eastern Cemetery.

On the other side is Cave
Hill Veterans Cemetery,

Louisville's oldest and most
prominent burial ground.

A beautifully kept
garden cemetery

in the popular style of
the mid-19th century,

Cave Hill is home
to over 5,500 graves

of Union and Confederate
soldiers spanning 296 acres.

In 2002 Cave Hill had about
120,000 people interred there

with space remaining for
about 22,000 more graves.

By comparison, Eastern
Cemetery has less than 30 acres

and over 138,000
recorded burials.

It wasn't that he had
any prior experience

with running a cemetery

and I know he leaned
some on Lee Squires,

he would try to consult with
him and ask advice and so forth

about just day to day operational
things or about equipment

or about the guys who
were working there

and they would
have conversations,

but my Dad may have been
just in over his head.

You know, I would talk to
Mr. Amos about the burials,

I'd say how can you have so
many spaces still available

and Cave Hill was about at
that time probably 80% full,

we had 300 acres, Eastern
was how many acres,

- do you recall?
- 29.6.

Yeah, I said how can you
still be burying people?

He said, "Oh, we just
find spaces, you know."

[gentle melodic music]

[Narrator] In 1843
parishioners of two churches

came together each donating
seven and a half acres of land

and the Methodist burial
grounds were formed

for the interment of members
of those congregations.

Articles of incorporation
were drafted in 1848

and approved by the General
Assembly of Kentucky

on the 4th of March, 1854

forming the Eastern
Cemetery Company.

The charter states that
a board of nine trustees

would be nominated,

half from each of the
two founding churches,

that all profits
remaining after the cost

of payment to
officers and laborers,

capital improvements
and other expenses

would be equally divided
between the two churches,

Fourth Street Methodist, now
Trinity Temple United Church

and Brook Street Methodist,

now Christ United
Methodist Church.

You know, I heard all along
that the Methodist church

was the owner of the
property and the cemetery,

which makes it
even more appalling

and all the managers
were Methodists,

so I assume that's correct.

But it was appalling to
all of us at Cave Hill.

What they would do, the
operators of the cemetery

would take the money,

the profits from
operating the cemetery,

take half of it for the continued
operation of the cemetery

and then take the other half

and split it amongst
these Methodist churches

and this was recorded
in the trustees' minutes

for as long as I could
find in the minute books,

that I was able to
get my hands on.

When it came to the
court situation,

there was actually an attorney,

who was hired by the
Methodist churches

or one of the
Methodist churches,

who any time anyone said
during the proceedings,

they tied the cemetery
to the churches,

it was his job to object

that they were not
legally tied together,

though it's pretty clear that
the trustees of the cemetery

were all members
of these churches

and the proceeds
were going there

whether they were part of
the same corporation or not.

The Board consisted
of a lot of elderly men

throughout the neighborhood,
but they had to be a member

of one of those churches in
order to be on the Board.

They would have a Board meeting
and I think they got $50

and a chicken dinner
when they showed up

and I think some of them

had to be woke up
before it was over.

The Methodist
church I don't think

claims any responsibility
for any of it,

that's very disturbing to me

and of course all
the family members,

that had the problems
with their loved ones

in their graves desecrated.

[Interviewer] Absolutely.

And if the Methodists
were responsible for it,

that's a real shame.

[Narrator] Eastern
Cemetery has a history

of public concern for over
burial and grave desecration,

as early as 1885,
the local journal

reported on complaints
about the burial grounds

citing filthy conditions

and graves that were
only a few inches deep.

In 1912, JW Hardin told
the Courier Journal

that when he came to visit his
parents' final resting place,

the grave of a William Clark
had been placed on top of them.

In 1915 a lawsuit was
filed against the cemetery

by lot holders
alleging that $4,500

had been misappropriated
to the beneficiary churches

instead of the Perpetual
Care Trust Fund.

In 1948 Edna McDaniel's suit
for a plot she had purchased

including one her husband
was already buried in

were resold by the cemetery.

Mid-19th century,
Thomas Shanks,

he was the guy in the 1850s,

who was the sexton of the
cemetery, either he or his wife,

they kind of swapped
off the jobs, alright.

Thankfully she kept the records,

'cause she had
beautiful handwriting

and during that period of time

and I'm pretty certain
that this is the guy

that discovered that as
Louisvillians were moving west

during the westward expansion
of the United States,

okay, the 1850s, he was
buying up family lots.

So let's say you
owned a family lot,

that you had paid 25 or
$30 for, a 10-grave lot

and maybe you had children
that were buried there

or a couple of family members,

well, you know, you're
moving out west,

I'll give you $25 for your lot

or $15, we really
don't have the figure,

but what we see was
he was buying the lots

and that's kind
of convoluted too,

they would either be bought back

in the name of Eastern Cemetery

or they were bought by
Thomas Shanks personally.

Louisville was a small town,
you would move west, okay,

so it was in the paper, you
and your family moved west

to find your fortune,
you've gone to St. Louis,

maybe you wrote a letter back,

it would get into
the local papers.

At that point old
Thomas would go,

hm, they're off the
scene now, your whole lot

with the two or three graves
would go up for sale, okay.

He was also apparently
one of the individuals

or the individual
that discovered,

hm, people aren't coming back
and visiting this section,

we'll just rebury it completely.

So this Thomas Shanks
starts actually reallocating

parts of the cemetery
as new sections,

we have the Old Slave Grounds
just completely disappeared,

the Cheap Willow, the
Elm Tree division,

there are entire sections of
that cemetery that are gone.

[Andy] When I've
gone out to Greenwood,

which is half the
size of Eastern

and basically the
same conditions.

So we were at Greenwood
and we were walking around

and there literally are bones
on the surface of the ground,

you can walk round and be
well, that's part of a fibula,

that's like an occipital
at the back of the skull

right there by that tree.

Greenwood feels like it
wants to be left alone,

it feels,

it feels defeated,

it's a sad, sad place.

[Narrator] In 1903
the Board of Trustees

of Eastern Cemetery loan the
Union Land Development Company

composed primarily of prominent

African-American undertakers

$20,000 for the
purchase of lands

and mapping out of a
new cemetery, Greenwood.

Three iterations of maps
exist for Greenwood Cemetery,

1903, 1932 and 1984,

these maps depict the
majority of the grounds

having been reburied,

in some cases entire
sections of Greenwood

completely disappear
and in others,

new sections have been
carved out of old ones.

Many of the black undertakers
formed a corporation

and they borrowed money to
start Greenwood Cemetery, okay,

the reason I know this is
from reading the minutes

of Eastern Cemetery's
Board of Directors,

they formed, they had
Stonestreet and Ford

lay out the cemetery.

The roads, this was
rural Jefferson County

at the time were unpaved
and in the summer

they wrote a letter to
the Board of Aldermans

saying that the dirt
roads, the dust,

'cause this was when
you were following

a horse-drawn hearse
to the cemetery,

the dust would
choke the mourners

and then in the wintertime,
the mud was quagmire.

The members of Eastern Cemetery

had so much political pull,

that they kept the road
from being macadamized,

as a result of that,

or at least the black undertaker
consortium went under.

The property was bought
at a Sheriff's auction,

there are minutes that state
they hired an individual,

who was not directly associated
with the Eastern Cemetery

to buy Greenwood Cemetery
at the Sheriff's auction,

they did, they brought
the deed to the cemetery

and it was transferred
within a day or two

to Eastern Cemetery Corporation

and then on top of that all,

the note that was outstanding
by the black undertakers,

the operator's fees for the
cemetery called the note

and they wanted the
cash for the loan.

[Narrator] In May 1935
the Eastern Cemetery Company

built Kentucky's first crematory
at a cost of around $8,000.

As demand grew,
the newly renamed

Louisville Crematory
and Cemetery Company

cornered the market
on cremations

and continued plans
for expansion.

In September 1957
construction began

on a new structure in the
back of Eastern Cemetery,

which would house the
offices, chapel, crematorium

and columbarium at
the cost of $79,737.

The construction of the
building and a new access road

was directly over what
had previously been

the Old Colored
Odd Fellows section

and the remains of
numerous burials

were shifted into
a condensed area,

which would later
be re-designated

as section 19 or Babyland.

[light melodic music]

In 1984 Paul and Shirley Barr

sued Louisville Crematory
and Cemetery Company

when their son, Michael
couldn't be buried in a plot

they had purchased in 1979,
because it was already occupied.

The family was awarded $10,000

and the court determined
that the defendants

had done a sloppy job,
recommending a survey

be done on all
graves sold pre-need.

In a Board meeting on
February 27th, 1987,

the Barr case was discussed.

It is clear from the
minutes of this meeting,

the Board understood they were
going to have more problems

with reserved graves,
they needed to secure

additional burial
space for the future.

Present were Clifford B Amos,

President of the Board of
Directors and Charles Alexander,

Executive Director in charge
of day to day operations.

Charlie was nice, he
could be very, very nice

as far as running a company,

no, he depended on,

he wasn't great at
management, he wasn't great,

we all knew our jobs and
we all kind of did them,

he was very good at
manipulating the guys.

You put that grave
there no matter what,

I mean, that's their policy,

they're not gonna call
a funeral director

and tell a funeral director

the grave you just called in
for so-and-so is not there,

we got to do this and that,
they're not gonna do that,

you know, they're not gonna
talk to the funeral director,

they're not gonna tell a family,

they're not gonna tell nobody

you put the grave
there at whatever cost.

I mean, for some, if
you're digging through one,

dig the grave deep enough, put
the skeletal remains back in,

make the burial on top of it.

[Narrator] Louisville
Crematory and Cemetery Company

office staff included Barbara
Ray, bookkeeper since 1987

and Beth Selch,
receptionist since 1984.

Bob Allen worked alongside
two other gravediggers,

Ronnie Aubury and JR Miles.

For years Bob Allen
complained to his supervisor,

Charles Alexander that
every time he dug a grave,

he found signs of
a previous burial.

Finally in 1988 Allen went
before the Board of Directors

with his concerns, a policy
statement about the problem

was to have been issued,
which would have protected

the gravediggers from
legal repercussions,

but no such document
ever materialized.

You know, when they
found I was bringing it up

and he said, "Well, I'll
approach the board with it",

"I'll talk to Amos
and Copley about it,"

"I'll get some answers and
I'll get back to you all."

But it never happened.

When the guys
started coming in,

probably early '89
talking to us finally,

saying here's what's happening,
we're going out there

and we're having to
hide skulls with tarps,

so these family
members were not seeing

that there's other
bodies in the dirt

that's going to be
refilled into the grave,

there's lots of bones and bodies

and we told them we don't care

what the Board members
are telling you,

we don't care what
Charlie's telling you,

what you're doing is illegal.

Charlie had a seat,
he had a sign that said

Don't Worry, Be Happy

and we kept on
talking and talking

and I thought how the hell
are you gonna be happy,

because I'm done, I'm
done with it, you know,

so I got off that day at noon,

I come home and
first thing I did

was call the Attorney
General's Office.

They sent, the AG's
Office sent an accountant in

to look at the books
and this other guy,

this other guy turns
out to be a detective

for the Attorney
General's Office

and he just kind of hangs out
with the guys for two weeks

and literally there are McDonald's
bags under the front seat

with femur heads and human bones

and there's just
bones everywhere.

[Narrator] On the morning
of Tuesday May 30th, 1989,

Jim Caldwell entered
the cemetery offices

under the guise of performing
the annual tax audit

along with Rick Morris, an
auditor from the AG's Office.

Jim Caldwell
came in with Rick,

Rick was an auditor with the
Attorney General's Office

and Jim Caldwell came in

and immediately Barbara and
I knew he was not an auditor.

Jim, the first time I met him,

Jim, you could see the
cop coming out of him,

I mean, you know, he
was strictly business.

I knew he was a police
officer the minute he walked in,

nobody wears brown polyester
except for a police officer.

When I met Jim
for the first time,

he was wearing jeans
and a white T-shirt

and a leather shoulder
holster with a .357 Magnum

with a sixer and
eight-inch each barrel.

[Narrator] Under
normal circumstances,

graves were always dug the
day prior to a funeral,

but after Jim
Caldwell's arrival,

Charles Alexander
instructed the ground crew

to hold off on preparations for
the burial of James Dudgeon,

which was scheduled
for the following day.

[Bob] Okay, he told
Ronnie and JR not to dig it,

while they were there,
he said, "Wait."

He said, "While they're in the
cemetery, don't do it, wait."

So they dug it the
next day by the office.

There was going to be a
burial and a rose garden

right outside of my
office the following day

and they knew they
would find something,

they absolutely knew,
they always did.

So it was gonna be set up to
where Jim Caldwell came up

when they had dug the grave.

They hit all kinds of
previous burials in there,

it was loaded on the dump
truck, taken back and dumped,

it was just normal
procedure, you know,

they dug through whatever
it was, went on the truck,

dumped it, covered it up

to make the burial the next day.

From what Bob
Allen had told me

about that specific burial,
there were I believe

three to four
bodies in the grave,

where Mr. Dudgeon was
supposed to be placed.

The Attorney General's Office
came back in two days later

actually carrying almost a
backpack filled with bones.

[Narrator] Around seven a.m.,
Thursday June the 1st, 1989,

Bob Allen unlocked
the front gate

and let Jim Caldwell
back to the stone vault,

Caldwell entered
with a flashlight

and found what was
later determined to be

a human tibia on one
of the stone shelves.

Later Charles
Alexander told Caldwell

that the cemetery
was very, very old

and unidentified bodies were
laying in some locations.

When remains are found

in what is thought
to be an empty grave,

the procedure is to allow
for the new burial anyway.

Jim, the morning
he come in there

and I turned things over to him,

he went to the Coroner's Office
to make sure it was human.

I know he told me
one time, he said,

"I'll put yellow tape
around this whole building"

"and lock every one of them up."

[Narrator] After taking the
remains to the County Coroner,

Jim Caldwell returned to conduct

a more thorough investigation,

he found human remains in
a golf cart, a tool box,

some strewn on the ground
near the office building,

others in a garbage can, while
some remains were discovered

rolled up in a fast food bag

stashed in a truck's
glove compartment.

I mean, I think they
were told you know,

if you're out there, find
something, pick it up,

but some of it wound up
in the pick up truck,

some of it wound
up on the backhoe,

it's just where people went
through and they picked it up,

you know, not trying to hide it,

but they knew it was out
there on the grounds.

[Narrator] The Kentucky
Attorney General's Office

brought charges against the
then 145 year old company

and its three chief officers,

Clifford B Amos, Robert
Copley and Charles Alexander.

All three men pled
innocent in July 1989

after a grand jury indicted
them on over 60 counts

including corpse abuse,
grave desecration,

improper handling
of burial payments

and failure to
keep adequate funds

in Perpetual Care
Trust accounts.

If convicted on all
criminal charges,

Louisville Crematory
and Cemetery Company

face fines up to $1.1 million

and Amos, Copley and
Alexander were subject

to sentences of up to
268 years in prison.

It was in total contradiction

of everything my Dad stood for,

I mean, he was just such an
upstanding type of individual.

I certainly could imagine
that it could have taken place

without his knowledge
or awareness,

he really probably should not

have been in the
role that he was in,

he did not know anything
about cemeteries.

[Narrator] An injunction
filed July the 21st, 1989

prohibited any new burials
at Eastern or Greenwood,

except for the 3,200
pre-need plots already sold.

The order also
stated every burial

would have to first be examined

by an archeologist from the
University of Louisville.

[Phil] A relatively large
percentage of the graves,

that have been sold as reserves
as we investigate them,

the grave right behind
you as a matter of fact

was occupied by
three individuals

and then by the time we got
to the third individual,

all we had was the pelvic region

and they had been just cut

and basically a third
of the individual

had been cut off with a backhoe.

[Bob] Phil DiBlasi
is an incredible man,

I mean, the knowledge that
guy's got is incredible,

I mean, they used him

because when the
investigation was going on,

they had to have somebody
that was qualified to go in

and check that grave and
make sure it could be used.

I was involved with
the investigation

under the Attorney General,

the court order said you people
are operating a cemetery,

but you can't violate the law,

so to keep you from
violating the law,

we're gonna have an
archeologist come in here

and every time you open a
grave, he's gonna look at it

to find out if it's
previously occupied.

[Narrator] Phil DiBlasi
began his investigation

of Eastern and Greenwood
Cemeteries in July of 1989,

digging up about
two graves a day,

usually side by side with
Jim Caldwell and Bob Allen.

By November DiBlasi reported
checking about 70 sites

and only a few failed
to produce remains

from previous burials.

[Phil] As we were digging
the grave for Esther C Nelson,

we encountered the pelvic region

and lower extremities
of individual one.

[Narrator] In one case at
a family member's request,

the remains of Jesse W
Melson and Ivy Irene DeSpain

were disinterred and identified

for relocation to
another cemetery.

During the excavation
of the grave,

remains of more than a dozen
previous burials were found.

We have individuals,
these are all,

the 10 of these that
we've indicated here

are John or Jane Doe, they
were buried prior to 1870.

The individuals I'm
going to point out now

are individuals who
are on the modern grid.

[Narrator] The re-designation
of cemetery sections

is clear as the modern
burials face the road,

but the ancient
burials are facing east

in continuity with
Christian burial traditions

in the 19th century.

There are approximately,

well at first there
was intended to be

and for a while was maintained

a Perpetual Care
Fund by the cemetery,

that Perpetual Care Fund I
am informed by witnesses,

who are prepared
here to testify,

but will do so by affidavit,
is about $100,000 short.

Now the nature of a
Perpetual Care Fund

is that when one purchases a
burial site in the cemetery,

a certain portion of
that purchase price

goes to setting up a fund,

that theoretically the interest
and income from that fund

over the years
will be sufficient

to maintain cutting the
grass in the cemetery

and even maintain
it in the years

after the cemetery becomes full.

[Narrator] The Perpetual
Care Fund for Eastern Cemetery

was estimated to be
missing over $117,000,

which by law was to be used
for the upkeep of graves,

monuments and cemetery grounds.

The cemetery had also
been illegally charging

family members for annual care,

although these services
were never rendered.

You shouldn't have to do that,

if the money is being
put into the Trust Fund

like it should have been,

there wouldn't be a need
to charge the family

or whether it was legal or not,

probably not to charge
these families $50 a year,

75, $100 a year to
maintain their graves.

[Narrator] After building
Kentucky's first crematory,

Eastern Cemetery held a monopoly
on the cremation business

throughout the 20th century.

On August the 8th, 1966

the University of
Louisville Medical School

sent over several
cadavers for cremation

and by the 1980s, Eastern
Cemetery was solely responsible

for all medical waste
cremations from U of I.

We received bodies every year,

if you donate your body
to the Medical School,

they use your body for science,

after a year your
body is cremated

and it is returned
to the family,

that is what is
supposed to happen.

Jim Caldwell was upset

with the way the med schools

were treating the human remains

that were coming
in for cremation.

There were 20 or 30 sets
of remains at a time,

they were supposed to come back

in individual boxes
and individual

and I understand that they
were coming back kind of mixed.

The year that we
got bodies over there,

a body came out of the box,
the box it was sent over in,

that box, Bob Allen
came up and got me

and he said, "We
have a problem."

When I went downstairs there
were probably in that box

five heads, 22 toes

and 18 mice in one box.

They were cremating, they
were accused of cremating

more than one body
at the same time,

so technically if you cremate

parts of two or three people

from a med school
medical waste as one,

is that breaking the law?

And I said stop
what we're doing,

I'm calling the Attorney
General's Office,

finding out what we need to do.

Jim Caldwell had to come over,

we had to open
each and every box,

because each body is
supposed to be returned

to the family, a whole body,

in one of the boxes we
found probably 15 babies,

that had notes on the box,

these babies were no
doubt over 365 grams,

they were not abortions,
all of them were babies

that should've had
proper burials.

It was declared that everything
in those boxes were okay,

basically the Attorney
General's Office

did not in any
way, shape or form

wanna take on the University
of Louisville Medical School.

[Narrator] Over the
course of the investigation,

cemetery workers
told Jim Caldwell

that about 70 infants' bodies

were buried less than a
foot beneath the surface

in section 19 or Babyland.

And a couple of times I
was told to come to court

to testify about Baby ground,
Babyland, some other thing.

I get down there, no, no,
no, they don't need you,

you know, we're not gonna
get that for that spot,

we're not gonna get there,

you know, it's like they
don't wanna hear it, man,

you know, they
don't wanna hear it.

Babyland as we
call it, section 19,

there are several
babies buried there,

a lot of them still
don't have tombstones,

they still have just the
classic pieces of paper

and a lot of those
babies were buried

maybe nine inches deep,
maybe 12 inches deep.

[Narrator] Caldwell
found that infants

were routinely buried
in wooden containers

constructed of one
inch pine boards

and the identified graves

ranged from 10 to
24 inches in depth.

I did a disinterment there
and literally took my trowel

and scraped the grass
off and hit the lid

of the wooden box the
stillborn was buried in.

[Beth] The babies
were absolutely,

I actually have
pictures of one baby

and like I said, that
was put into a jar

and put into a grave
maybe nine inches deep.

I made a couple of
burials back there,

all of us did, Ronnie did some,

JR's done some, I done a couple,

but I know one I did when
I was digging the grave,

because the little baby grave
you dig by hand with a shovel,

you know, 'cause you're
usually gonna go one by two,

one foot wide and two foot
long, maybe two foot deep,

a foot and a half,
two foot deep,

but when I dug, I
didn't get that far,

when I hit a leg bone,
pretty good size femur

and I just stopped right there,
I said no, this is it, man,

I stopped and I went to
get Charlie, you know,

I said you ain't got
that far to walk,

come out there and take a look,

so he walked down, he
looked, he said, "Pick it up",

"finish digging the grave
deep enough to get by"

"and put that back in
there on the bottom."

[somber melodic music]

[Narrator] Addah
Herdt, a longtime member

of Christ United
Church accepted a seat

on the Board of
Directors in 1974

and in 1980 took a full time job

as office manager
at Eastern Cemetery.

Addah's daily responsibilities

included sales of
burial monuments

and billing for the annual
and lifetime care plans.

I had a lady that
came to my hospital room

and offered to "Take care
of it," as she put it

and at that point I'd had
a really terrible delivery.

So I was just at
a loss what to do,

so I let her take care of
it, take care of the burial

and I can still
see her face today,

'cause I think she knew what
was happening down there.

[Narrator] In the mid-1980s,

Addah Herdt began soliciting
the mothers of stillborn babies

while still recovering
in their hospital rooms

offering them closure through
the burial of their child

at Eastern Cemetery for the
very reasonable cost of $75.

She would sit bedside

and write out the bill of
sale on a hospital napkin.

Well, she came down as a
representative of Eastern

and so she just came
in the room and said,

you know, she did the normal,
"I'm sorry what happened,"

blah blah blah and then said,

"For $75 we can take
care of the burial,"

and at that point, like I
said I had a rough delivery

and I didn't know what
to do, so I let her

and as soon as I was able
to, I went down there,

to where I thought
he was buried.

Because she had talked to
this lady for a couple of hours

and shared the most
intimate details of her life

with this woman who seemed
to be so nice and caring,

to sit there and
listen, that you know,

I mean, who would fake
something like that?

Who would make up that
stuff to deceive you?

Who would act like that and
have an ulterior motive,

when you've just
been through so much.

The people of the Louisville
Cemetery Crematory Incorporated

would, that's who
would, that's who did

and because of that, she chose
to have her baby buried there

and felt good about it
for a very short time.

Needless to say when
she stopped going,

because she heard of
what happened there.

I saw it on the news

and I thought that nightmare
of a delivery just got worse

and that was my first thought,

that this nightmare,
it just became worse.

Who in the hell
takes advantage

of a person in that situation?

I mean, what's wrong
with somebody that,

and not even
somebody, a business,

I mean, it was their practice,

that's how they
conducted their business

by preying on people like her,

who every single one of them
is gonna be going through

one of the hardest
times of their lives.

My big thing was just not
being able to go down there

and I also just felt like
a fool for a long time,

thinking I've been going
down there and who's there,

if anyone and it
just felt dirty.

[Narrator] After the news

of the over burial of
Eastern Cemetery broke,

the families of those
resting there were outraged.

Attorney General, Fred Cowan
said more than 200 people

called to file complaints
or seek information

within the first week
of the indictment.

You have to understand,

you had hundreds and
thousands of family members

coming up wanting to know
once this broke news,

is my family buried
with somebody else?

Is my grave still available?

No, your grave's not available,

your grave's not available,

because there's probably 13
people in your grave also

and do you get a refund on this?

No, you don't,

the cemetery doesn't have
any money to pay you back.

Oh well, I'm gonna
move my husband out of,

okay, well, you can do that,

but you have to
pay an archeologist

or an investigator
to identify the body,

plus you have to buy a
grave in another cemetery.

We were out in the
cemetery doing an exhumation

and this pick up truck
came and somebody,

one of the crew members
from the cemetery

realized who it was,
this guy pulls up,

sticks a double barrel
shotgun out the window at us

at which point everybody is
kind of like diving for cover

and he said he wanted to
know where the boys were,

where his children were
and then he drove off.

[Bob] When we were still
working and cremating people,

I had to lock the front door,

them girls left, they
couldn't take it no more,

I mean, the phone
calls were unreal,

threats, threats, people
beating on the doors,

that the only thing they'd know

is what they'd
read in the paper,

they didn't know
that I'm still there,

Beth's still there,
Barbara's still there

trying to keep the place going,
I mean, why, I don't know,

because there was
no future for it,

but I just felt obligated.

That's what we said,
we felt an obligation

to try to deal with these
families on some sort of level.

You had families bringing
weapons up there,

they might also
have told you that,

but you had families bringing
weapons up, they were angry,

I certainly would be, if
it had happened to me,

my father's dead and buried

and they were very angry and
they were very frustrated

and there was not any
answers we could give them,

the Attorney General's Office
didn't wanna talk to them,

they were sorry they had ever
gotten in the middle of this,

they were sorry any
of this had ever been,

they wished all this
would just go away.

[Narrator] After the
removal of Charles Alexander

and the resignation of all
the remaining Board members,

the Cemetery Company was
placed in receivership.

In October of 1991, Beth Selch

was appointed to oversee
the company by the court

only days after her
marriage to Jim Caldwell.

Jim and Beth
Caldwell, [laughing]

Jim came together
with Beth Selch,

she was the secretary, she
was a very becoming young lady

and it was kind of funny,

because you'd watch
the funeral directors

and they were all kind of
sniffing around and being nice

and bringing her coffee
and stuff like this

and then you know, these are
guys that are making big bucks,

they're driving around in
great big Mercedes Benzs

and stuff like this, but old
Jim, he pulls it through,

he ends up marrying her.

And when I went to court,

I had gotten married
and of course that was,

it was gonna be not that
good of news anymore,

because I had
actually married Jim

and it wasn't the illicit affair

that they were trying
to say we were having

and Judge John said and
I will never forget this,

I went in and he said
"Okay, Miss Selch,"

"I'm gonna ask, I've
had a name change,"

and you heard 22 attorneys
actually be quiet.

[Narrator] Jim
Caldwell resigned

from the Attorney
General's Office

under pressure
from his superiors

after the investigation
of Eastern Cemetery.

He began working alongside Beth

positively identifying
dozens of bodies disinterred

by concerned family members
for burial in other cemeteries.

Yes, sir?

I did not realize
until relatively recently

the number of disinternments,

that Jim was involved
with after I had left.

He was in quotes positively
identifying individuals

and I find that
extremely disturbing,

I don't think he was
capable of doing it.

[Narrator] Unable to
sell any more graves

and with the cremation
business rapidly declining,

Beth couldn't maintain adequate
funds to upkeep the grounds,

compensate employees
or pay utility bills.

Finally in 1992 the
gas and electric

were shut off for the final time

and Beth Caldwell
stepped down as receiver.

[Bob] Me and Jim was trying
to do everything we could,

I was trying to run the backhoe,

he was trying to watch for me

and it just got to the point,

where I mean, I went
back to the office

and one of the funeral
directors from Indiana called,

gonna bring a body over and
Beth said he'll be here shortly,

I said okay, I'll go
down and open the door.

Well, they turned the gas off

and they turned
the electric off,

so the dude shows
up to the back door

and I go up and
tell her, I said,

well, we're not gonna
do nothing, I said,

'cause I can't get the door
open, we don't have no electric

and we don't have no gas.

The only thing I
regret to this day,

I mean, that place
took a toll on me,

I mean, when I went
to work up there,

I had blond hair and when I
left there I had gray hair.

Threats, the people
treating you like a dog,

you know, we turned
into the criminals,

you know, we stayed to help
and the criminals walked free.

[Narrator] On
August the 26th, 1991,

the criminal case against
Clifford Amos, Robert Copley

and Charles Alexander
was dismissed

after finishing a six-month
pre-trial diversion program.

As part of the conditions,
the three men were

to no longer be employed
by the Cemetery Company,

nor participate
in its operations.

Defense lawyers have
contended that Caldwell

first came to Eastern
Cemetery in May 1989

without a search warrant

and intentionally
misled cemetery staff.

Much of the evidence and
testimony was deemed inadmissible,

because Caldwell had been
led on to the grounds

before business hours by
cemetery worker, Bob Allen.

Over $100,000 in cemetery funds

was paid in legal
fees for the defense

leaving nothing to
compensate victims

in a class action lawsuit
against the Cemetery Company.

A statement issued by the
Attorney General's Office

expressed that the prosecution

agreed to resolve
the criminal case

not because of the challenge
to Caldwell's methods,

but because the
defendants were elderly

and had never been
in trouble before.

You know, his life was solid,

he was just this solid person,

who believed in doing the right
thing, not the wrong thing

and there was no motive for
him to do the wrong thing

and that's why I still
believe that he was innocent

of wrongdoing in this scenario,

where wrong things were done.

[somber melodic music]

The Attorney General's Office

didn't fully disclose what
they were there to do,

therefore they were there
under false pretenses,

which made all of the evidence

and everything else worthless.

When the indictment come down,

they were taken out of there,

they hired Frank
Haddad's law firm,

I think they used cemetery money

and they walked 'em
through the book

and they didn't
even stay in jail,

you know, they
walked 'em out of it

and I thought no, this is
not right, it's not right,

they're gonna walk and
nothing's going to be done.

We went through all of
the legal machinations,

all the pre-trial hearings,

we were ready for the
trial date, we met,

I was there because I
was expected to testify

every time the trial date was

turned out to be a
pre-trial hearing

in which the judge ripped
the AG's Office a new asshole

and explained to them what
a warrant to search was

and threw the entire
case out the window.

They did, they had
an excellent attorney

and they had money

and when they were actually
charged with the crimes,

they walked through
the jail system,

but never spent one minute,

they didn't even have
to be bonded out of jail

and never paid back
one penny, never,

nothing ever happened
to them, nothing.

They went on just
forever asking questions,

just trying to get
anything they could

to where this would go away
in the court and it did.

The three men charged
with these crimes,

Mr. Amos, Mr. Copley
and Mr. Alexander

never spent one day in jail,

not one day.

[Bob] I don't know
what was going on,

but somebody was
covering up something,

because they had Beth and
Barbara do a sworn deposition,

them girls worked in the office,

they handled the books and
stuff and answered the phone,

they wasn't out on the ground,

they didn't see them
bones in a grave,

they didn't see people getting
dug through and pounded on.

They didn't once through
the whole investigation

get me, Ronnie or JR
on a sworn deposition.

Finally I told 'em, I
said I want a meeting

with the Attorney
General's Office,

I said I wanna find out
why this is going on,

you know, I think
if they did not want

us from the ground crew to tell,

because they done knew
where that case was going,

they knew it wasn't
gonna go nowheres,

you know, they're gonna shaft
Jim Caldwell and they did,

because he come in there
without a search warrant,

they hammered on him, hammered
on him, finally he resigned.

[somber melodic music]

Okay, yes sir, you've been
trying to get a word in.

[somber melodic music]

One day I was at
Greenwood Cemetery

and this gentleman
walks up and he says,

"I'm Maurice Phillips, I'm the
overseer of this cemetery,"

and it kind of raised
a red flag with me

and I said well, what
are you overseeing?

This is the first time
I've ever laid eyes on you

and he says, "Oh well,
I appreciate everything"

"you all are doing down here,"

"this helps us stretch the
money a little bit further,"

and I said what money?

And he said, "Oh, I get
money from the state"

"to maintain the cemetery,
as I'm the overseer."

He had this old
beat up Dodge van,

he would go and pick up the
guys from different charities,

at that time they were using

Eastern Cemetery equipment
to mow the cemetery.

And I question where
was the money going,

because we were using
volunteer labor,

we were using money from
my discretionary account

at City Hall to
maintain the equipment,

so where was the money going?

And so I started
asking questions

and I really didn't like
the answers I was getting.

I know he was accused
of mismanaging money,

I thought it was small potatoes,

I thought it was
maybe three or $4,000,

I hear now that the numbers
were much larger than that.

[Narrator] In
the Spring of 1997,

the court appointed
Maurice Phillips

receiver over the
three cemeteries,

which had been abandoned
for nearly five years

since the resignation
of Beth Caldwell.

In March of 1998 Maurice
Phillips had tons of dirt

and construction debris
dumped on about a quarter acre

of marked and unmarked graves

in section four of
Eastern Cemetery.

Phillips reported he needed
the dirt for filling sinkholes

and open grave shafts
left by disinterment

and for grading the ground

where burials were too
close to the surface.

The debris came from
a condemned distillery

nearby on Payne Street,
which was being demolished.

Then we all of a
sudden got a phone call

saying there are
piles of debris,

it wasn't dirt, but debris,

so we rolled over
there and there's piles

of rock and brick and
wood and someone said,

"Well, we were trying to fill in"

"where these graves
have fallen in."

But that's garbage, you're
dumping garbage here.

Mo had a backhoe and
he had a dump truck,

so he went over and talked
to I guess, the contractor

and said, "Look, I'll
haul off your dirt"

"as you guys are doing
all this construction,

"I've got a place to
dump it, you know,"

"you guys give me this amount
and I'll take care of it."

He had somebody doing
some work somewheres

and he was letting 'em dump
over there for so much a load

and I understand that
he was getting paid

per truckload that
they brought in there.

Well, I was getting answers
that this Mr. Phillips

was given this money to
maintain three cemeteries,

Eastern, Shardein and Greenwood,

Shardein's a very
small cemetery,

so it wasn't much
to maintain that,

but Greenwood was massive
and Eastern was massive.

When I looked at the
records, I was shocked to see

that money was being
punched out of ATMs

at two o'clock in the
morning at 4th and Oak,

at one o'clock in the
morning at 18th and Broadway,

which is why I raised a red flag

and said no one's cutting
cemeteries that time of night,

something's going
on with this money,

which then in turn led
me to the Commonwealth

Attorney's Office to
start asking questions.

[Narrator] On
February the 14th, 2001

Maurice Phillips was
removed by the court

following allegations by the
Attorney General's Office

that he had abandoned his duties

and mismanaged cemetery funds.

In July Phillips was indicted

by a Jefferson County
grand jury and charged

with 26 counts of theft
and 25 counts of forgery.

Between January 1999
and February 2001,

Phillips stole or misspent

at least $98,541
of cemetery money

making deposits in
six bank accounts

held at L&N Credit Union
by Phillips and his wife.

Among the alerted
transfers was $19,796

from the State Transportation
Cabinet for land

purchased from Shardein Cemetery
to widen 7th Street Road.

Two of the accounts in question
were closed immediately

after a restraining
order was issued

to freeze Phillips' assets.

I mean, I gave
every bank record

to the Commonwealth
Attorney's Office,

reported to him about the issue
of using this crematorium.

We would receive phone
calls over to Shardein,

Shardein backs up
to a neighborhood,

we would receive phone
calls in my office,

where they would call us and
say somebody was back there

at two o'clock in the
morning digging a grave

and I was like, what?

And we'd go out there and
there would be a fresh grave,

so I explained to Dave
Stingle what I do believe

is that this man
is trying to run

some type of cemetery business

and burying people and
charging families for it

and there was not supposed to be

any burial in those cemeteries.

[Narrator] On
July the 24th, 2001

Phillips was booked at
the Jefferson County Jail,

but was released on his own
recognizance later that day.

Maurice Phillips died
July the 29th, 2005

with no resolution
to the charges

that had been
brought against him.

There has been no receiver
appointed by the court

for the three cemeteries since.

[somber melodic music]

[Narrator] With no one
left to oversee the cemetery,

break ins to the chapel, garage

and the stone vault
became frequent,

hundreds of gravestones
were toppled over

and century-old
monuments were destroyed.

Brass name plates were
pried off of gravestones

and sold as scrap metal,

fires were set
throughout the basement

and even inside the
incinerators themselves.

I think it was also a
really convenient place

for teenagers in the Highlands
that wanted to come party

and do drugs, drink,
whatever they come and did,

because you know, 28 acres,

it wasn't hard to find a
private, quiet little spot,

where nobody was gonna see them,

especially with the
grass as tall as it was,

the trees and bushes as
overgrown as they were.

I do remember

seeing the broken into

and littered crematorium

and I remember seeing
the vases of ashes,

they were scattered
and that sort of thing,

so I do remember that

and I do remember
hearing complaints

from someone like
AD Porter Senior,

an African-American
funeral director,

who actually lived
in the neighborhood,

adjacent, Cherokee Triangle

and I do remember meeting
with him as I recall

and always always trying
to conjure up ways

that money and care
could be provided

to what was essentially an
abandoned and bankrupt cemetery.

[Narrator] The
chapel and offices

located in the back of Eastern
Cemetery were broken into

and vandalized countless times
over the following years,

the walls filled with graffiti

and the cremains stored
in the columbarium

were stolen, dumped
out or destroyed.

On July the 28th, 2003,

Professor DiBlasi
petitioned the court

and recovered and
moved 244 sets of urns,

some unlabeled or containing
multiple sets of cremains.

Phil at some point went
over to the columbarium

and noticed that
people had broken in

and when he walked in,

he went to the area where
the columbarium was,

which the columbarium
was basically

an ornate, glass shelving system

and people could when they
had a relative cremated,

they had nice
little bronze urns.

People had smashed the glass,
they had gotten the urns

and dumped out the
ashes on the floor.

You know, this is her Mom,

so I call her up
on the telephone

and I'll be honest with you,

by the time I was done
with the conversation,

I was crying too and I was like,

I'm not letting this
happen again, okay.

So I went to the judge,

went to the Attorney General's
Office to get a court order

and we brought all the
cremated sets of remains here.

So Phil started packing 'em up

and to put it in perspective,
he had a full size van

and these little urns,

being that they're brass,
bronze or what have you,

they probably weigh
eight to 10 pounds,

the cremains inside
probably weigh three pounds.

He loaded up the van three
times completely full,

packed them down to U of I
and unpacked 'em all in a day,

that's how much it meant to him,

that no more got dumped out.

These were people that
he had no connection to,

that's just the person he
is, that's how he thinks.

What we had was we had
a couple of dates set up

and they could call here
and what they would do

is they would come in and
they would sign an affidavit

that said they were
the nearest next of kin

and we would get them, we
would go get their ashes

and we would bring them out
on one of the steel carts

and we would give them to 'em.

He was able to over the course
of the last 10 or 15 years,

he's been able to
contact the families

and I think that to date
he's almost got half of 'em

reunited with their families,

so they've come and picked
'em up, which is huge.

[Narrator] In a court order

issued February the 14th, 2001,

the University of Louisville
Program of Archeology

took possession of
the written records

for Eastern, Greenwood
and Shardein Cemeteries,

which included burial index
cards, day books, range books

and maps, some dating
as far back as 1843.

He got a ton of records,
he found all kinds of records

and he took all those
down to U of I with him

and he at some point a lady
who was critically ill,

who had family in
Eastern came down

and she's like, "Look,
I've got $50,000",

"I wanna leave it to Eastern

"and I wanna put that towards"

"getting the grass
cut and maintained,"

and Phil says, "All due respect",

"that may cut the
grass for one year"

"and the next year,
it's all gonna be back,"

and he's like, "Longterm
where that money"

"would best serve the cemetery"

"is to set up an endowment
for the records,"

which she listened
and trusted him enough

to follow his lead on that

and with that, the records
have been preserved

and they're being put
into a digital form,

a little bit every year
with students working on it.

We're gonna scan
all of the records,

because the paper is acid

and literally people
are disappearing

off the bottom of the page

and you know, to me,
that's probably all

that was ever written
about that human being.

[Narrator] 25
years after the news

of over burial broke
at Eastern Cemetery,

Andy Harpole decided
something had to be done.

He formed the Friends
of Eastern Cemetery

based on the belief

that those buried within
the cemetery walls

should receive
the perpetual care

they had not only
paid for, but deserve.

- The Friends of Eastern
Cemetery is a really great group,

you have a lot of incredible
people, who care a lot

and that's an
incredible basis I think

for what we're trying to do

is having that group of people,

who really are
passionate and care

and when they hear the
stories of these families,

they are more compelled
to want to do more

and I just think
that's a great quality

to have in a group of people.

I've been involved in
different volunteer groups,

this is the real deal,

they're not doing this
to get anything out of it

and they work so hard
when they're there,

I just feel like it's
one of those groups,

where you can see
progress being made

and they're all in
for the right reasons.

There's lots of odd things
you can do volunteer wise,

that may be a little
bit more self gratifying

or quicker results

and just the fact that
it's a cemetery, you know,

I tell people, I'll be
talking to my Dad or whoever,

I'll be working in the cemetery
really, what are you doing?

Just working in the cemetery,

why are you working
in a cemetery?

So I mean it takes a different
kind of people, I think,

that are willing to do this.

I mean, I think fundamentally

everybody has this kind of
empathy for what happened there

and we kind of see a reflection,

something, an idea that
I've heard mirrored a lot,

that I believe is you can
tell a lot about a society

by the way it treats its dead

and so it's a fundamentally
important ritual to have

and it hasn't been upheld.

So one of the ways that
we describe ourselves

is that we're caretakers
for a cemetery,

that doesn't have a caretaker.

[Narrator] On
December the 3rd,

the Friends of Eastern
Cemetery was incorporated

as a non profit organization.

The group hosts a number
of events annually

including historical
tours led by Joel Berndt,

Preservation Training
seminars taught

by nationally recognized
expert, Jonathan Appell

and flagging ceremonies on
Memorial and Veterans Days.

In addition to general
landscaping and maintenance,

the volunteer group also repair
and reset toppled monuments

and clean eroded gravestones

using a non-corrosive
D/2 biological solution.

The very first
time I went there,

it was just a vast
variety of people

doing anything and everything
you could possibly think of

and everybody was welcoming,

we were all there
for the same purpose

just to see what
we could do to help

and it was great, we
spent all day there

just cutting grass,
raking, trimming for hours,

you don't even realize
how long you're there,

until at the end of
the day you're like

really, you know,
it's five o'clock?

Every time you show up

and the same people
are there again,

you're like oh,
thank God, you know,

they're gonna stay,
'cause you never know

and it really is a
community effort,

you need a lot of people.

Now the upkeep that's
going on now, it's helpful

and I'm sure it lifts up
other people's spirits.

When I started with
Friends of Eastern Cemetery,

every grave that I came across

that had that Cunningham
name on it, I would just cry

and I would be like
that's mine, that's mine,

you have that last name,

I don't care where
you fit in the tree,

that belongs to me.

Knowing what this
group is doing is amazing

and to be a part of the group

and to share in the
experiences with the families

that come and see the
work that we've done

and how much they appreciate it,

just share the hugs and
the tears and the joy

when they're able to walk
finally to their site,

that they couldn't do forever,

because the grass was
literally as tall as your chin.

So that part of
it is just amazing

and I would not do that,
'cause I know that this group

is a great group and
hopefully it will be around,

I mean, this is our
third upcoming season

of working there and
we have big plans.

I've met a lot of
new friends, you know,

that are family to me now, the
Friends of Eastern Cemetery.

I can point people in directions
now and they pull through

and be like this is the
section you need to be in,

oh, I've seen that, I've just
cut around that gravestone.

I'm trying to get
us to do more events,

more tours, try to
get schools involved,

try to get more local
groups involved,

because there's such a great
amount of history there

and the more people
you bring in,

the more people you
talk to about it,

they're going to
tell more people

and I'm just hoping that
raising that awareness

can keep growing the non-profit

and that's also how you
can start fundraising,

because the more people learn,

the more that they
do want to help.

We just need more help,

we need more funding,

we are a small group

that is trying so hard
to get the cemetery

not obviously back
to where it once was,

you can't just recognize
one person in that plot,

it's not fair,

but to get it back, where
families can come in

and be happy that it's
being taken care of.

One of the things
we would like to do,

we were all young
when my mother passed

and we would like to
purchase a headstone,

but at the time what I
do remember is my father,

he was a bricklayer and
he wasn't paid much,

but he put a red
brick as a headstone

to mark where they had laid her

and when we went back
to try to find that,

that's what we couldn't find.

- With finding out about
Greenwood's abandonment situation,

just like Eastern's,

we thought it would be fitting
to help them get a stone,

because I guess
they never were able

to get a stone made for her,

so we contacted Evan's
Monument Company

and they were willing to
donate a gravestone for her

and so we got the burial records

and the position of the
burial plot for Mary Cobb

and we went over
and set her stone,

so that when the family came
on Memorial Day Weekend,

or just before, they had a
nice surprise waiting for them

rather than what they
normally come there for

and had to deal with.

You know, those are,
well, it's our loved ones

and not only ours, but
other people's loved ones,

so I can speak for my family

that we're truly grateful,
that someone cares.

You know, we were
young back then,

but we would like to be able

to know where my Momma is,

I mean, we would like
to put a headstone up

after all these years, it
would mean a lot to us,

it was five of us,
four girls and a boy

and we don't even know
where she's laid at there,

we just know she's there.

Well, a cemetery is
supposed to be the guardian,

you know, of deceased
family members

and it's supposed to
be a reverent place,

you're not supposed
to disturb graves.

You have who's who
of Kentucky's history

and Louisville's history
buried back there,

so why isn't anyone
approaching those folks?

There's no ownership,

until someone takes
ownership of the property,

I don't think you're gonna
get much of a change.

We can't take ownership of it,

because if we take
ownership of it,

we inherit the
liability, which in 1989,

because of all of the
pre-need sold graves,

which right now
there's supposed to be

somewhere around 5,000,
the estimate in 1989

after DiBlasi and the
Attorney General's Office

kind of put all their
resources together

after reading the records

and doing some archeological
digs is $59 million

and that's 1989 money.

We are gonna make this
work, it's going to work,

this is not a one-year plan,
this is not a 10-year plan,

this is a forever
plan, you know,

this is a forever
commitment that we all

as Friends of Eastern
Cemetery have made.

There's just a
lot of great people

trying to do great things

for families that some
people don't even know,

I mean, you know, I
have family there,

but there are people there
that there's no family there,

they're just good people
trying to do right

by years and years and years
of things that have gone wrong

and I just would hope that
they would give us the chance

to continue the good
work that we're doing,

'cause it is good
work, you know,

I just want people to
know that we're there

and it's okay, it's
okay, you know.

You know, we're a longterm,

I wanna see a memorial
museum in there

with every single name
of every single person

that we can find,
that was buried there,

so that their family can come
and at least see their name.

I put everything on
the line, you know,

I mean, I've said it before,

I mean, I should've
kept my mouth shut,

I should've went looking,

found me a job and
got away from it.

They would have got
busted sooner or later,

it couldn't last forever,

I mean, it lasted for
the turn of the century

up until 1989, so it
had to end somewheres

and it would've ended, I mean
they would've hung their self

and the outcome might have
been different, you know,

if I wouldn't have did what
I did and I'd have left,

they would've kept on going,
things would've got worse,

Ronnie would've kept on
doing what he was doing,

nothing would have changed,
they'd have got caught

and chances are that
one would've stuck,

something would've
really happened to 'em.

I mean, I could've
just walked away.

This is a person
who had a final wish

and they have a family, who
supports this final wish,

who needs this ritual
and this space to come

and to be at peace with what
happened to them in their life

and that's sort of lost,

that's the part that
I don't understand,

look, I just don't know

how you could get over
that hump, you know.

I don't know how widespread
that is historically,

I don't know whether it's
a total criminal aberration

or whether it was something
that culture has done

more frequently than we realize.

Things are never gonna be
right at Eastern Cemetery

and that's I hope,

obviously it's gonna be
there after I'm gone,

I'm just hoping that
people will not allow it

to be abused over and
over and over again.

[light melodic music]

[multiple voices speaking]

[melodic country music]

♪ Three days in a cave

♪ Friend to be saved
calling out to Mother Mary ♪

♪ Asking for a raise

♪ Four nights on the road

♪ Coming back home, travels
in these soulless cities ♪

♪ Wring about familiar
pities in restless prose ♪

♪ To just bones

♪ Time will beat on

♪ With its perfect
drums and pantomimes ♪

♪ Switching buttons
and pushing lines ♪

♪ The spotlight fades
to pull the punch ♪

♪ And say

♪ That life will roll on

♪ With its undercurrents
and overtones ♪

♪ Whistling winds
through dried up bones ♪

♪ A mother with her
arms wide open sings ♪

♪ That you

♪ You are not alone

♪ The universe
laughs in the face ♪

♪ Of those who dare
to tackle grace ♪

♪ And burn the midnight
candles for a while ♪

♪ Drifting on the edge of time

♪ A stone's throw
from oblivion ♪

♪ You'll meet your shadow
self face to face ♪

♪ See that it's just
fear you embrace ♪

♪ Time will beat on

♪ With its perfect
drums and pantomimes ♪

♪ Switching parts
and pushing lines ♪

♪ The spotlight fades
to pull the punch ♪

♪ And say

♪ That life will roll on

♪ With its undercurrents
and overtones ♪

♪ Whistling winds
through dried up bones ♪

♪ A mother with her
arms wide open sings ♪

♪ That you

♪ You are not alone

♪ She puts you on your knees

♪ As you're begging,
darling, please ♪

♪ Release me so I
can baby step away ♪

♪ She whispers back to me

♪ Magic moments only
works in threes ♪

♪ And all you have to
do is live to play ♪

♪ And the sun will rise
to shine another day ♪

♪ Time will beat on

♪ With its perfect
drums and pantomimes ♪

♪ Switching parts
and pushing lines ♪

♪ The spotlight fades
to pull the punch ♪

♪ And say

♪ That life will roll on

♪ With its undercurrents
and overtones ♪

♪ Whistling winds
through dried up bones ♪

♪ A mother with her
arms wide open sings ♪

♪ That you

♪ You are not alone

[melodic melancholic music]

[Bob] The only thing that
I would really like to say

is the way the families
have been ripped off,

I mean, hundreds and I told
the Attorney General that,

I said these families bought
these graves in good faith,

knowing they had a place to go
if something happened to 'em

or something happened
to their loved ones

and then when the time comes,

they're told there's no
room, they can't use it,

you know, that's not right,

thousands, there's gotta be
thousands of 'em out there,

that own property there,
they can't use it,

they paid for it and they're
not gonna get their money back,

they're not gonna get
another site to replace it,

the money's not there,

I mean, they've been
shafted big time

and I think everybody
turned their back on 'em,

I think the Attorney General
turned her back on 'em,

they didn't go far
enough to help 'em.