What did a gravedigger Willie Esper help unearth in an Ill. cemetary?
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 whistleblower, 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 threa
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 whistleblower, 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 threa
