Killer blocks moving of family's bodies

CHESTER, Ill., Nov. 29 (UPI) -- An Illinois judge has temporarily blocked the family of a woman and her sons from moving their bodies from the burial place chosen by the man who killed them.

Angela DeCicco and her son, Mario, had been given a permit to exhume the bodies of Sheri, Garett and Gavin Coleman from Evergreen Cemetery in Chester, Ill., the St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch reported. DeCicco, Sheri Coleman's mother, wanted to move the bodies from southern Illinois to a cemetery in the Chicago area, where her family lives.

Christopher Coleman, a former bodyguard for evangelist Joyce Meyer, was convicted in May of the murder of his family. Richard Whitney, a lawyer representing Coleman and his parents, made a last-minute motion Monday to block the exhumation.

A judge in Randolph County is expected to make a final decision in January. Jack Carey, a Belleville lawyer representing the DeCiccos, said he received no notice of the motion and accused Whitney of a "classless unprofessional act."

Coleman's brother, Brad, said his family has also "suffered a great deal" and the bodies should remain where they are buried.

"The audacity and hypocrisy of the entire Coleman family is despicable," Mario DeCicco told the Post-Dispatch. "All my mother wants is to have her babies home."