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Jul 8, 2009 4:00 pm US/Central
More Than 100 Bodies Dug Up At Historic Cemetery
Burr Oak Cemetery Final Resting Place Of Emmett Till, Other Prominent African-Americans
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Civil Rights icon Emmett Till is buried at Burr Oak Cemetery. (File)
CBS
More than 100 graves were dug up and bodies dumped in a massive pile at the historic Burr Oak Cemetery, an investigation by the Cook County Sheriff's Office has found.
Prominent African Americans including Civil Rights icon and lynching victim Emmett Till and Blues musicians Willie Nixon and Dinah Washington are buried at Burr Oak Cemetery, reports CBS station WBBM-TV in Chicago.
Four or five workers at Burr Oak are accused of conducting off-the-book burials and pocketing the cash.
WBBM reports the owners went to authorities with the allegations about six weeks ago after an employee not involved in the scheme told them colleagues were doing burials on the side and using occupied grave sites, and discarding the bodies already in the graves.
"One of the things they attempted to do – but we can't rule a lot of things completely in or out yet – was to pick graves where individuals had been buried here for quite a while, where individuals had not come and visited in quite a while. Those were the primary ones it seems as if they targeted," Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said. "They would excavate the entire burial cast, the concrete structure that the casket would go into, they would lift the whole thing up and then that would be smashed, along with other things.
"Headstones are scattered."
It is believed the operation had been going on for four to five years. The owners have been in charge of the cemetery for the past six years.
The employees alleged to be involved in the scheme face felony charges, though no charges have been filed yet.
The investigation could take months as forensic experts have been called in. The FBI is doing grids of the entire cemetery to try to locate every disturbed grave and body. Body parts and bones are strewn across the cemetery.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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