4 YEAR OLD BOY CRUSHED BY GRAVESTONE. The Brandon Schwartz Story.

hey gang we are on the west side of Chicago I guess you call it Des Plaines Forest Park not far from Forest Home Cemetery right over there and by the way first off I want to thank Jackie who I met at Triggs Woodruff man Aqua all right she's liquor store cashier but she had told me the story before here a very sad accident that happened to a boy named Brandon Schwartz he was only four years old and yeah tombstone toppled on top of him I found the grave of his grandmother they were here coming to visit his grandmother he was with his parents Marvin and Rose it was Mother's Day it was Mother's Day May 11 1986. now his father was 56 years old Marvin Schwartz he was a holocaust Survivor and if the three of them were here their mom Bella Bella kestenbaum have passed six years before and you know Mother's Day they were here it was Rose's mother and they were walking right where I am walking in this row I believe that they came were the Grave is almost in the center of the section and I'm gonna surmise they came from the west side I'm sorry the south side straight ahead coming from the opposite direction there's a reason I'm doing that because I want to show you something I think I found the actual gravestone that fell and Bella is buried right up here now let's just start with Bella's grave now this Cemetery I'm going to tell you has a notoriety and the notoriety is that they have huge tall tombstones monuments you see here and many of them are tipping over and it's actually a very dangerous situation here you really have to watch where you're walking because this is the result now that stone right there weighs about a thousand pounds how do I know that because I measured the stone that fell on the little boy it weighed 500 pounds and was about half of that now there you go that is ready to go if you're walking to the right there and it's at the wrong moment your time has come fate all right there are other parts of the cemetery that are much much worse I'm not going to show it I don't want to come down too hard on this Cemetery we'll talk a little bit about it but here is the grave of Bella who was 70 years old when she passed away August 3rd 1980. so this is the stone that they were visiting rest in peace Bella castenbaum now they're presumably walking down one of these two rows and I think it was this row and again I'm gonna explain why when we get there but it just a little guy was walking along his parents were walking in front of him presumably right here and they they heard he was behind them and they heard a thud you know boom you can imagine and they turned around into their horror Brandon is pinned under a stone and the stone is kind of like this size you know it's not that big of a stone and it's on a base just like this and it was tipping over and it just picked that moment to fall on him and he was crushed and I was dead with the adrenaline because it said later the police took four police officers to move to pick up the stone but his dad Marvin like moved it right off him can you imagine I think any of us would have superhuman strength right so mom was hysterical obviously a bad scene the police came now the stone measured 38 inches tall it was 20 inches wide and nine inches thick most of these stones are eight inches so I shouldn't say many of them but as I walk this entire area all this well I didn't go end to end of the section like over there but I kind of four or five rows on each side I measured each Stone like those two now the news article had the exact dimensions Deb found that and thank you Deb for helping and this is the only stone that matches and it just happens to be right on this on this row so I will take out the tape and show you so like I said nine inches right okay nominally nine inches it was 38 inches high see if I can do this so again it was at the base here all right right there and there you go just under 38 but we're talking nominal here and they said it was 20 inches wide oops all right there you go so now this Stone if this is the stone or whichever Stone it was I'm not saying this is the stone it's a good chance it is it's maybe a 60 40. but I don't know but the bottom line is that particular Stone whichever one it was fell before this accident and injured someone else if I'm reading the article or the research right or there was a stone here that injured someone else but in any respect these stones are time bombs just waiting to happen now when you see this says trust fund that really just means that they're going to trim and really not going to do much but when it's endowed let's see if we find something that means that the family has prepaid and their you know repairs everything else see now interesting that one says that one says danger keep away and this one isn't even tipping and by the way if you go to the west side of the cemetery it's like it's like broken up in all these huge sections there are tiles it looks like Jenga blocks on the ground the kids piled all over the place now here is yeah here's one right here next to these two there's a notice on these two stones again I'm just wondering if that's the stone but this is endowed care so lifetime they're gonna fix it but here's a good example look at it just now Frank Troost if he's watching says that you always need to we always need to pin these you know with rods and none of these I can tell you I haven't seen one they are all and maybe it's 1930s you know that's the way they did it just glued it but what happens is ice gets under here even with this epoxy or caulk and this thing walks so it's tipping and it's walking and it's a time bomb it's a time bomb waiting to happen just like this one so ironically this man his wife her Stone has fallen over just like what we're talking about and thank God no one was walking here that one over there these ones over here you can look all over the place and you are going to find these tipping stones these little time bombs that are just waiting to happen now endowed care trust care this care that care I I don't want you people to come down on weldheim okay this is really tough I mean there are thousands of stones here they don't have the money this the families are supposed to keep up with this stuff so but the one thing if anybody that's works at Waldheim they're great people don't blame them please they don't have the budget this is the really it lay it lays on the families unless it says Perpetual care right but let's not get too hard on them but if any of you are watching that work here at Waldheim I will give you a recommendation okay and you guys tell me if it's a bad recommendation or a good recommendation but it may seem like vandalism but I think that it's better that you you don't push them down but you get a you get some equipment out here I don't want to walk over that open you know and here's here's a good example right here come out here you know this this is waiting to happen you can even see the failure of that clocking and you know there's water getting interesting and this thing has already walked okay see that I want you to take a close look on the right is about three and a half inches and on the left is two inches this thing has already walked to the left so it's loose and free and next spring this is going to tip a little more and in five years this is going to be ready to go and there's a lot of people I see a lot of rocks a lot of flowers someone's going to get hurt or killed and if you get hit by this one this is a thousand pounder that one I showed you there was 500 took four guys to move you are a big guy like me I'm dead okay so what I would do all the time and any other cemeteries in the country of the world that have the same problem is I would get equipment and I would just lay this down lay it down lay it down over the deceased because it's going to fall this one's going to fall on Harry Schwartz over there Who's down in the ground right here so take Isadore Isador aminsky he died in 1937 and put him put that stone right over him right here okay that's that's that's what I recommend guys so a lot of danger here in fact this is nothing compared to this this is this is really well this is nothing compared to the other the western parts of the cemetery it's I would say 30 of the stones are look at here's another one wow this is leaning way over and that's even bigger that's 1500 pounds maybe two thousand yeah lay those things down guys all right we are going to go to Arlington Heights and I'm going to see if we can find Marvin and Brandon I don't know if Rose but there's find a Graves that say they're at Shalom in Arlington Heights so hopefully we can find his grace so let's head up there all right we are at the Shalom cemetery and we're in Arlington Heights Northwest of the city pretty far suburb beautiful Cemetery it's more like a Memorial Park and I have found their graves tucked in Behind These bushes here so Brandon was pronounced dead at Loyola Medical University Medical Center and is quoted in the newspaper and a neighbor said Mrs Schwartz was completely hysterical Sylvia Benish the neighbor she said he was an adorable child this is such a shock it is just unbelievable he was so handsome and so smart the parents are very nice and loving people so as I mentioned it happened recently there and one of the biggest law firms injury attorneys here in Chicago is core boy in Demetrio and they took up the case they would get a settlement for the family of 1.5 million dollars and several entities were named as defendants in the wrongful death lawsuit the lawsuit had of course alleged that the defendants were negligent maintaining the grounds and tombstones and by failing to properly inspect the tombstones the previous toppling had occurred they mentioned that same monument that caused Brandon stuff I understand [Music] so as you see as you saw at the cemetery it's a beautiful sculpture here where like in the very center of the cemetery so let's walk over to the graves which are right here [Music] right here in this little shady spot so they are actually interred here in front of the stone so we'll start here this is someone else now here's Brandon let's come to Brandon last here's a Jacqueline now that mother's name was Rose I thought I don't think this is her born 1934 dad Marvin was born in 1929 so a little confusing there different first name is this Rose is this a second wife don't know but in any respect I will leave a flower interesting Epitaph on the stone you'll live in our hearts forever our Unsinkable Molly Brown of course that's a reference from the Titanic famous Molly Brown who survived the Titanic here's Marvin so this is his father 1929 Marvin pass July 19th 1997. so just over 10 years after a little Brandon passed they are reunited and this is Brandon's grave here Brandon Scott Schwartz December 28 1981 to May 11th 1986 so sad we love brother beloved Son and brother oh it's terrible well rest in peace to the Schwartz family Brandon Marvin Rose and all the Schwartz's that have passed on and I hope there's no more accidents at Waldheim I hope it's sure to happen again somewhere in the world it's so so sad rest in peace guys rest in peace

Channel: Faces of the Forgotten

Views: 80,346

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Id: V_Ab9m45aw8

Length: 19min 51sec (1191 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 21 2023