More than 100 interred in mass burial

Nearly 100 bodies from the Cook County morgue were buried Friday in a mass grave in South suburban Homewood, ABC 7’s Chuck Goudie reported.

A rental truck brought the wooden coffins, believed to contain the remains of 22 adults and more than 70 children, babies and fetuses, to the Homewood Memorial Gardens. Student volunteers from the Worsham College of Mortuary Science in Wheeling carried the smaller boxes and later led a prayer after the grave had been filled.

“Everybody who lives on this earth is here for a purpose and nobody should be laid to rest without a service,” Worsham professor Timothy Kowalski told ABC 7. “So my students come here to help with the interment. That’s part of their obligation as funeral directors to give back to the community, to give back to Cook County.”

The burial was supervised by Kim Jackson, an executive officer of the medical examiner’s office. Some workers at the morgue had blamed her for mismanagement, resulting in a pileup of hundreds of bodies at the facility. Jackson refused to comment Friday to Goudie.

ABC 7 reported that the organization that oversees Catholic cemeteries in Chicago and the suburbs this week offered to donate 300 individual graves.

A spokeswoman for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle also couldn’t be reached for comment.