July 9, 2009 Police: Graves dug up to resell plots Play video

(NECN/WLS) - Four workers accused of digging up bodies at a historic cemetery in Alsip, Ill., were charged on Thursday morning.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said the workers dug up more than 100 bodies and dumped them in mass graves at the back of the 150-acre property at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, about 20 miles southwest of Chicago. The plots were then resold to unsuspecting customers, Dart said.

Four cemetery workers were charged Thursday morning with one count each of dismembering a human body, a class X Felony: Carolyn Towns, 49, of Chicago; Keith Nicks, 45, of Chicago; Terrence Nicks, 39, of Chicago; and Maurice S. Dailey, 59, of Robbins. If convicted, they face six to 30 years in prison.

"This is a very difficult case on a lot of levels. It is very difficult for people emotionally. There are a lot of remains scattered around. This was not a surgical effort where individuals lifted up bodies and delicately placed them. They were dug up with backhoes. They were discarded," Dart said.

As families consoled each other, Dart warned it may be some time before the families have answers. More than 30 FBI agents were coming in to help identify remains and study the grids.

Unconfirmed reports now say as many as 300 bodies may have been dug up.

Five people, including a cemetery manager, were arrested for allegedly digging up the graves and then dumping the remains to make room for new bodies.

Chicago native Emmett Till, whose 1955

lynching at age 14 added impetus to the Civil Rights movement, is buried at Burr Oak. The sheriff said Wednesday they had found no evidence that Till's grave in particular had been dug up.

It's also the final resting place of singers Dinah Washington, Willie Dixon, and Otis Spann, as well as former world heavyweight boxing champion Ezzard Charles, Harlem Globetrotter Inman Jackson, and several Negro League baseball players.

Jason Knowles reports.