Larry Bartley is accustomed to digging up bodies.

The secluded Newton County fields the Indiana state trooper patrolled had been ideal dumping grounds, he said. So in 1986, when Bartley was called to check out what might be a dead body in a local cornfield, he wasn't shocked.

"I dug up a body," Bartley said. "It was nothing to me."

But to the Chicago crime world, the discovery of the nearly naked bodies of Anthony and Michael Spilotro became part of one of the biggest federal organized-crime trials in history and script fodder for a graphic mob killing in the movie "Casino."

Though it may be one of the most famous and startlingly visible links, the grave site is not the only connection Northwest Indiana has to the just-wrapped Family Secrets mob trial in Chicago.

The cornfield

One day in 1986, a farmer traveling along the sleepy stretch of Ind. 14 near Enos, Ind., noticed an unusual interruption in the growth of his well-tilled rows of corn.

He and others, including Bartley, took a closer look. At about 100 feet from the road, Bartley clawed through the sandy soil to find the Spilotros, one on top of the other, wearing just underwear.

"I didn't even know who in the hell the Spilotro brothers were," said Bartley, now the Newton County coroner. "It didn't mean anything to me, being a little rural farm country boy out here in the middle of nowhere."

One day last week, in that middle-of-nowhere spot, Bartley surveyed the area where 20 years ago, he uncovered two film-inspiring mob men. And he reflected on the guilty verdicts in the Chicago trial.

"I was happy," he said.

But because the men have aged so much since their crimes, "it's not just punishment," Bartley said.

"But at least they didn't get away with it," he said.

Frank Calabrese Sr.

During the trial, defendant Frank Calabrese Sr. filed a motion for a release on bond.

The U.S. attorney's office in Chicago argued it was a bad idea, namely because Calabrese's expertise at faking Indiana and Illinois identification materials made him a flight risk.

According to the government's memo opposing Calabrese's request, Calabrese "is indeed an expert in the acquisition and use of false identities ... (and) stashed numerous false identity documents (including) ... Illinois and Indiana vehicle registration documents."

William "Billy" Dauber

The Family Secrets trial attempts to assign blame to 18 unsolved murders, including those of William "Billy" Dauber, and his wife, Charlotte.

William Dauber, a reputed mob assassin, was at one time the head of a stolen car ring in Northwest Indiana.

Jim Wagner, head of the Chicago Crime Commission, called Dauber a "strong-arm guy" whom, with associates, would strip and sell the parts of cars they stole to salvage yards.

In 1980, while driving from a court hearing, the Daubers were shot to death in their car in Will County by killers using a high-powered rifle and shotgun.

Frank "The German" Schweihs

An alleged enforcer and collector for the Chicago Outfit, Frank "The German" Schweihs faced charges of extorting "street tax" from the owners of an adult entertainment store in Indiana.

According to the case's indictment, Schweihs "did expressly and implicitly threaten the use of violence to cause harm to the former owners of the store in an attempt to obtain a sum of money from them."

Schweihs, battling cancer, was severed from the Family Secrets trial in June because of health problems.

U.S. attorney spokesman Randall Samborn said he could not provide details on the Indiana store Schweihs allegedly targeted, but the information could come out in a subsequent trial.

Albert Tocco

According to the government's evidence papers, Albert Tocco allegedly "authorized the hit" of an Outfit associate in 1981.

In 1990, Tocco had been sentenced to 200 years in federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., for racketeering, extortion, conspiracy and tax fraud.

Tocco's wife testified against him in his trial, saying that in 1986, she drove her husband from the Newton County field where he told her he'd just buried the Spilotro brothers.

Tocco died almost two years ago, after suffering a stroke in prison, at the age of 77.