Jul 10, 2009 6:33 pm US/Central
Till's Casket Found In Pile Of Litter At Burr Oak
Sun-Times: Battered Casket Was Rusting In Back Of Shack
Family Of Emmett Till Plans To Take Legal Action
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
Broken. Rusted. Battered. The image of a glass-covered casket with the body of Emmett Till was shown around the world in the 1950s. But on Thursday, as hundreds of African Americans searched frantically for the graves of love ones, the battered casket of Till was rusting in the back of a shack at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip.
The casket was surrounded by garbage and discarded headstones strewn about like litter.
"When we opened it up trying to find what we have, a family of possums ran out," said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.
Cemetery workers had been cooperative and informed law enforcement officials that it was indeed Till's original casket.
"It sure looks like all of the photos I have ever seen," Dart said. "This is absolutely horrible."
CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli reports that Emmett Till's death in 1955 galvanized the civil rights movement.
His mother's decision to let the world see her son's lynched and mutilated body in an open casket shook the conscience of the nation.
"Those who saw his body were never the same again," said Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Now Till's family is shaken by the way the casket that the Chicago boy was laid to rest in was stored since it was disinterred four years ago as part of an investigation into his murder.
"I did view the casket and it is appalling to see the condition in which it has been allowed to decay," said Till's cousin Ollie Gordon. "We will be trying to move the casket as soon as possible to another location."
The family discovered Thursday that Till's original casket had not been preserved in accordance with an agreement between the cemetery and Till's family.
"Emmett's death was a watershed in America, race relationship, and we don't want this to disappear into oblivion," said Till's cousin Simeon Wright.
But that's exactly where the coffin appeared headed when investigators found it two days ago.
In the same rundown garage, there appeared to be dozens of grave markers and headstones of loved ones laid to rest in years past. Sheriff's officials couldn't say if they belonged to people whose graves were ransacked by the four people who are accused of robbing graves for profit.
And they said there's a chance some remains will never be found and identified.
In June 2005, Till's body was exhumed during an investigation of his death. As is customary, he was not reburied in the same casket.
The original casket was supposed to be part of a planned memorial for Till at Burr Oak Cemetery, but the donations for that memorial were allegedly pocketed by a woman who has been charged in this ghoulish scheme.
Till, 14, was kidnapped and murdered after he whistled at a white woman in 1955 in Mississippi. The lynching of the Chicago youth helped spark the civil rights movement. A picture of his severely mutilated face was shown around the world.
His original casket is symbolic of the condition of the battered condition of the cemetery.
Officers raided the cemetery at 4400 W. 127th St. in southwest suburban Alsip on Wednesday morning.
Four people, including Carolyn Towns -- the woman who was supposed to set up the Till memorial -- were charged with one count of dismemberment of a human body.
The other charged employees were brother Keith Nicks, 45, and Terrence Nicks, 39; and Maurice Dailey, 59.
Throughout the day, sheriff's deputies ferried
anxious family members to grave sites in buses ordinarily used to take inmates to Cook County Jail.
The landscape in some sections of the cemetery was dotted with orange utility flags that some people mistakenly thought indicated desecrated graves.
But beyond the grassy areas at Burr Oak, hidden by a wall of high weeds and buried under mounds of dirt, is the nightmare that all of these African Americans were praying they were spared.
Dart says it's possible that more than 300 graves were dug up and dumped in the fenced-off area, and it could have been going on longer than four years. The investigation could take months and easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"There's no way we could ever afford this type of thing so we are getting federal assistance," Dart said.
Emmett Till's family plans to take legal action to preserve Till's legacy.
CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli and Mary Mitchell / Chicago Sun-Times, via the STNG Wire contributed to this report.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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