Emmett Till's Original Casket Found Rusting In Shack At Burr Oak Cemetery
ALSIP, Ill. — Some horrified relatives who searched Friday for loved ones' plots at a historic black cemetery at the center of a gravedigging scheme near Chicago instead found more human bones on the grounds, prompting authorities to close the cemetery and treat it as an expanding crime scene.
"I found bones out there, I found individuals wandering aimlessly around" who also found bones and other things, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said Friday night in announcing that Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip would be closed to the public. He did not offer details.
Families still will be able file inquires at the cemetery, which is the burial place of civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till and blues singers Willie Dixon and Dinah Washington. Dart said he hoped it would reopen to visitors within a week.
Thousands of families have visited and inquired about the fate of graves since four former Burr Oak workers were accused earlier this week of dumping hundreds of unearthed corpses in a scheme to resell plots. Each was charged with one count of dismembering a body.
Shareese McLemore, 36, of Kankakee, Ill. said she fears her mother's grave was tampered with after she saw the normally green grass around the plot was damaged and burnt.
"I have a sadness. It's bringing back memories," McLemore said. "I feel betrayed by the people who worked there."
About 5,000 grave sites were being investigated by Friday, but Dart acknowledged difficulty in gauging how the number would grow because cemetery records either don't exist or have been altered or destroyed.
"We can't get our arms around how many people are supposedly, allegedly, buried here," Dart said.
Dart's office has received more than 1,350 complaints _ up to 30 percent of which allege loved ones have been relocated. Up to 50 percent cite missing headstones.
While Till's grave site was not disturbed, police said investigators found his original iconic glass-topped casket rusting in a shack at the cemetery. The inside of the casket was shredded by wild animals living in it, police said.
Till was killed in 1955 after reportedly whistling at a white woman during a visit to his uncle's house in Mississippi. Nearly 100,000 people visited the casket during a four-day public viewing in Chicago, and images of the 14-year-old's battered body helped spark the civil rights movement.
When Till was exhumed in 2005 during an investigation of his death, he was reburied in a new casket. The original casket was supposed to be kept for a planned memorial.
One of Till's cousin's said she was appalled the casket was found in such poor condition.
"It's part of history, it's part of our trying to put a family to rest," Ollie Gordon said Friday during a visit to the cemetery.
Authorities said three former gravediggers and a former cemetery manager made about $300,000 in the scheme that stretched back at least four years. The four sold existing deeds and plots to unsuspecting customers for cash, authorities said. They then allegedly dug up hundreds of corpses and either dumped them in a weeded, vacant area of the cemetery _ which authorities had labeled the original crime scene _ or double-stacked them in graves.
Hundreds of relatives, some clutching maps of the 150-acre site, walked through rows of graves on Friday hoping to find their family members' plots undisturbed. Dart said closing the cemetery was necessary because it would be irresponsible to continue to let families wander around "to find nothing more than tears."
The sheriff said one family sought 10 grave sites and found none. And although Burr Oak plans indicate a designated area for infants called "Baby Land," none of those grave sites could be found, Dart said.
"More people have not found relatives than have found them," he said.
Dart said two funerals at the cemetery on Thursday also went wrong. One person was initially buried in the wrong plot and another body was sent back to the funeral home because the plot was already occupied by another body, he said.
Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes has started the process of revoking Burr Oak's license, and authorities said at least one lawsuit has been filed on behalf of families. Hynes said the cemetery's Arizona-based owner, Perpetua Inc., is cooperating with authorities.
The suspects, who were being held on bond, were former cemetery manager Carolyn Towns, 49, Keith Nicks, 45, and Terrence Nicks, 39 _ all of Chicago _ and Maurice Dailey, 61, of Robbins.
Towns also allegedly pocketed donations for a Till memorial museum, authorities allege, though she has not been charged in connection with those accusations. Court documents show she was fired from the cemetery in late May amid allegations of financial wrongdoing.
A spokeswoman for the Cook County state's attorney's office said Towns is being represented by a private attorney, but she didn't know the name. The Cook County public defender's office said Friday it was representing the three other defendants but did not yet have the attorneys' names. Attempts to reach family members were unsuccessful.
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Associated Press Writers Karen Hawkins, Sophia Tareen and Michael Tarm in Chicago contributed to this report.
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DON BABWIN | July 10, 2009 11:56 PM EST |
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