Family members search for the graves of relatives at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., Friday, July 10, 2009. Investigations continue at the cemetery where three gravediggers and a cemetery manager are accused of unearthing hundreds of corpses in an elaborate scheme to resell burial plots. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
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Updated: Friday, 10 Jul 2009, 12:44 PM EDT
Published : Friday, 10 Jul 2009, 12:44 PM EDT
ALSIP, Ill. (AP) - Thousands of families have been flooding a historic black cemetery in Illinois where four people are accused of unearthing hundreds of corpses in a scheme to resell burial plots.
The Burr Oak Cemetery is the final resting place of lynching victim Emmett Till, as well as blues singers Willie Dixon and Dinah Washington. Investigators found Till's original glass-topped casket rusting in a shack at the cemetery. The 14-year-old was killed in 1955 and his battered body helped spark the civil rights movement.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart on Friday said about 2,000 families have come to the cemetery trying to determine the status of loved ones buried there. Dart says the families have reported about 30 disturbed graves.
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