Lake Co. crematory employee admits role in cover-up

A Lake Bluff crematory employee admitted Thursday he gave a Libertyville funeral home director the remains of an unknown person to assist in hiding a mix-up involving two other sets of remains.

Keith Campbell, 57, was placed on probation for 18 months and ordered to pay a $500 fine after pleading guilty to misdemeanor attempted violation of the crematory regulation act.

Campbell, of the 30000 block of Waukegan Road, admitted he gave Marcee Dane of Burnett-Dane Funeral Home in Libertyville the cremated remains of an anonymous person from the Lakewood Crematory and created paperwork that allowed Dane to represent them as those of a known person.

Lake County Assistant State’s Attorney Christen Bishop said Dane, who pleaded guilty to felony desecration of human remains in December, presented the remains she got from Campbell to the family of John Fagerstrom of Libertyville,

Fagerstrom had died May 9, about two weeks after the death of Robert Tambourine of Northbrook, and Burnett-Dane sent the bodies of both men to Lakewood to be cremated.

Tambourine’s death certificate accompanied the bodies of both men, which arrived at the crematorium about a week apart. The cremated remains were both returned to Burnett-Dane bearing Tambourine’s name.

When Fagerstrom’s family arrived at the funeral home to pick up his remains, Marcee Dane took one of the two boxes labeled Tambourine, placed a label with the name Fagerstrom on it and gave it to the family.

The Fagerstrom family opened the box and found paperwork identifying the remains as Tambourine’s and called the funeral home. Dane assured them they had their relative’s remains.

Only after the Fagerstrom family had scattered the ashes did Dane realize she had actually given them Tambourine’s remains, and she went to Campbell for help.

Campbell provided her with a set of unclaimed ashes and created the paperwork identifying them as Fagerstrom.

But the family became suspicious of the package they were given and called the state Department of Professional Regulation and the state’s attorney’s office to ask for an investigation.

Bishop said Campbell was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor instead of a felony because his assistance in the investigation was crucial to determining what had happened.

Associate Judge Raymond Collins also ordered Campbell to perform 100 hours of community service and barred him from working in the funeral industry while on probation.

Dane was placed on probation for 30 months after her guilty plea, and an order that she spend 150 days on electronic home monitoring was terminated early on Monday.