Jul 8, 2009 10:46 pm US/Central
Graves Dug Up, Bodies Dumped At Historic Cemetery
Burr Oak Cemetery Final Resting Place Of Emmett Till, Other Prominent African Americans
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said more than 100 graves were dug up at historic Burr Oak Cemetery by employees carrying out off-the-book burials for cash.
CBS
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Emmett Till, who was murdered in 1955, is considered a civil rights hero. He is buried at Burr Oak.
CBS
Dozens of graves were dug up and bodies dumped in a massive pile at the historic Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, an investigation by the Cook County Sheriff's Office has found.
Four or five workers at Burr Oak are accused of conducting off-the-book burials and pocketing the cash.
"What we found was beyond startling and revolting," said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.
CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reports families are just now learning about this.
Michele V. Gregory is fearing the worst. Her father, Eddie Lee Brown, was buried at Burr Oak cemetery in 1986.
"It is very upsetting. I'm very shaken up right this minute," Gregory said. "So, I don't know what to do."
The cemetery 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," 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."
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.
"They were coming in here in good faith trying to bury a loved one and unbeknownst to them, the individual had other ideas how they were gonna make money off this," Dart said.
The exact locations of the desecrated graves still aren't known.
"This is very difficult for everybody involved in this because anybody who's had a loved one buried, you'd like to have that feeling that they're in a final resting place," Dart said.
"I just want to know if it's my father, if he's one of the ones, that's all I really want to know," Gregory said.
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.
"Headstones are scattered," Dart said.
The employees alleged to be involved are in custody, facing felony financial crime charges.
Burr Oak cemetery is the final resting place for many prominent African-Americans, including Emmett Till. His plot was not disturbed. Till is the teenager from Chicago who was brutally murdered in1955. His death in Mississippi helped spark the Civil Rights Movement.
If you have loved ones buried at Burr Oak Cemetery and want to check on their well-being, call (800) 942-1950.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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