Tucson woman denies Illinois cemetery-scandal ties

On Wednesday, authorities said between 200 and 300 bodies were dug up and dumped into mass graves at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., 20 miles south of Chicago. Authorities said it was part of a scheme to clear old plots so they could be resold.

Burr Oak is owned by Perpetua Inc., which Tucsonan Slivy Edmonds Cotton once headed. She has not been affiliated with the company since 2003, she said Friday.

"Whether this is intentional or unintentional, if there's any management issue, they're having it deflected to me," Edmonds Cotton said. "I don't think they're purposefully doing it, but they're letting it happen."

Edmonds Cotton, who co-owns the Pet Cemetery of Tucson with Patricia Taylor, said she served as Perpetua's chair and CEO from the mid-1990s to 2003, when she was fired.

Perpetua's Tucson telephone number has been disconnected and its Web site is down. Calls to its parent company, Texas venture capital and private equity firm Pacesetter Capital Group, were not returned Friday.

Current documents filed with the Arizona Corporation Commission list Edmonds Cotton as one of the directors and Perpetua's sole shareholder. Edmonds Cotton said she was told her picture is still on the walls in the Burr Oak offices.

Edmonds Cotton said a Chicago TV news station showed the picture on a newscast and made it look as though she was responsible for the lack of oversight at the cemetery.

"I have not had any operating responsibility for Perpetua since 2003," Edmonds Cotton said. "I'm completely severed from them and am no longer, an officer (or) director."

Edmonds Cotton said she owns "a small amount" of preferred stock in the company. She said it is less than 5 percent.

A prominent member of the national business community, Edmonds Cotton is a member of the Arizona Business Hall of Fame. She is very involved with Tucson charities and was an original investor and board member of the Bank of Tucson and was co-founder and co-owner of auto-emissions-testing company Envirotest Systems Corp.

Several black celebrities are buried at the Illinois cemetery, including civil rights figure Emmett Till, singer Dinah Washington, boxer Ezzard Charles and several Negro League baseball players.

The Chicago Tribune reported that two families with relatives buried at the cemetery have filed a lawsuit seeking damages, naming four employees and Perpetua President Melvin Bryant.

Edmonds Cotton is not named in the lawsuit, but said she's offended at the prospect of being associated with Perpetua and Burr Oak not only because of the crimes, but because she's worried Till's relatives will be angry at her. She said she worked for years with Till's mother, Mamie Elizabeth Carthan Till-Mobley, to convince Pacesetter to turn Burr Oak into a museum.

Edmonds Cotton said Pacesetter fired her because the company didn't want to invest in the museum concept and decided to get rid of corporate overhead.

Edmonds Cotton's attorney, Gregory E. Good, said Thursday was the first he'd heard of Perpetua. He said he didn't know why Perpetua would still list Edmonds Cotton on its documents.

"They may just be disorganized," Good said. "Why they're doing it, I think you'd have to ask them. What I want to do is see the corporate books of Perpetua, which are being kept somewhere in Texas, as I understand, to clarify when she actually went off the board. The corporate books and minutes will reflect that. Those are pertinent records. Frankly, corporation commission documents that are filed in various states are not the official record. . . . What's on file with the Arizona Corporation Commission is inaccurate."

Good said Edmonds Cotton will consider legal remedies.

"I'm concerned less about me and more about the Mobley family," Edmonds Cotton said. "After all they've gone through, for them to believe I was involved with it — after all the work I did with them — that I oversaw this abomination, is just not accurate."