Grief, Outrage over Grave Desecrations

Four Arrested for Digging Up Hundreds of Graves to Resell the Plots; Little Consolation for Victims

(CBS)  It's an alleged scam to make your skin crawl, one that can break your faith that a loved one's final resting place will remain final.

Police say four workers at a cemetery outside Chicago dug up and dumped as many as 300 bodies so they could resell the funeral plots. Cynthia Bowers reports from where grief has turned to outrage.

Hundreds of shell-shocked families descended on the suburban Chicago cemetery today, demanding answers.

In what is being called a real life horror story, Burr Oak cemetery workers are accused of digging up as many as 300 graves, dumping bones and decaying bodies into piles, and reselling plots to an unsuspecting public.

"This crime is a whole new dimension that shows what people would go through for financial gain," said Cook County, Ill. state's attorney Anita Alvarez.

That financial gain amounted to as much as $300,000 dollars over the last four or five years. The scheme, uncovered only after guilt-ridden workers alerted the owners, targeted older isolated graves with no headstones.

Linda Foster says it's like losing her dad all over again.

"I've got the marking so there's no mistaking where he was and he's not there," she said. "It's awful, God awful."

Gwendolyn Hicks, who can't find her son Christopher's grave, says she suspected for a long time something was wrong in this 64-year-old cemetery.

"Where are they putting the bodies? The place never expands," she said. "Where are they putting the bodies?"

This is about much more than profound personal pain. This is also a desecration of black history, because for years this was the only cemetery around Chicago where African-Americans could bury their dead.

Lynching victim Emmett Till's body lies here as does singer Dinah Washington, and boxing legend Ezzard Charles as well as thousands of lesser known, but no less loved.

"I have my grandmother and my uncle buried there. I don't know what to tell my mom," said relative Teresa Glover.

So far, four employees have been charged in the scheme and face up to 8 years behind bars.

"These folks here, nobody deserves anything like this to occur to them. We're trying to bring closure but it's gonna take a long time to do it," said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.

Investigators worry they may never be able to figure out which remains came from which grave, which means many families may have a long wait before they can rest in peace.