A group of Illinois grave diggers were charged Thursday with running a morbid scam in which they exhumed corpses in a historic black cemetery to resell the empty plots, cops said.
Investigators suspect more than 300 bodies were dug up in the suburban Chicago graveyard and discarded in a pit so the ghouls could cash in.
"There should be a special place in hell" for the perpetrators, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said during a press conference at the desecrated grave yard.
The famed Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip is the final resting place of civil rights lynching victim Emmett Till and his mother, as well as jazz legend Dinah Washington, bluesman Willie Dixon and boxing champ Ezzard Charles.
While the graves of the notables were believed to be intact, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said that doesn't lessen the outrage.
"What we found was beyond startling and revolting," Dart said.
Arrested in the sinister scheme were the cemetery's manager Carolyn Towns, 49, and grave-diggers Keith Nicks, 45, and Terrence Nicks, 39, and Maurice Dailey, 61.
They were all charged with felony counts of dismembering a human body.
The scheme was literally uncovered six weeks ago by a cemetery worker who stumbled across the mass grave while practicing on a backhoe.
Dart said the schemers targeted older and unmarked graves, and kept track which ones hadn't been visited for a long time.
He said the bodies were reburied - caskets, concrete vaults and all - in a massive hole at the rear of the cemetery.
"There were plenty of concrete vaults that were shattered," Dart said. "More than we could count."
Among the distraught relatives who descended on the cemetery yesterday was Tiffany Robinson who feared her cousin's grave had vanished.
"He was a United States Marine," Robinson sobbed. "They said they didn't know where he was. How could you not know where someone is? We deserve the right to know what's going on here."
The cemetery's owner, Perpetua Inc. of Arizona, released a statement saying it was cooperating with the investigation.
"We will make every attempt to insure and maintain the dignity of those that have been entrusted to our care," company officials said.
