So when she heard Thursday that four people had been accused of
reselling plots and dumping the remains of old bodies in an empty,
abandoned lot, she was overcome with emotion. After searching the
cemetery, she could only locate two of the grave sites of her 11
relatives.

"This is the biggest breach of trust I've ever experienced," said Brown of Oak Lawn.

Area funeral homes were inundated with calls from frantic families
seeking burial records or assurance. A phone line the Cook County
sheriff's office set up to take calls was overwhelmed. Alsip officials fielded hundreds of calls and dispatched police to handle traffic near the cemetery in unincorporated...

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So when she heard Thursday that four people had been accused of
reselling plots and dumping the remains of old bodies in an empty,
abandoned lot, she was overcome with emotion. After searching the
cemetery, she could only locate two of the grave sites of her 11
relatives.

"This is the biggest breach of trust I've ever experienced," said Brown of Oak Lawn.

Area funeral homes were inundated with calls from frantic families
seeking burial records or assurance. A phone line the Cook County
sheriff's office set up to take calls was overwhelmed. Alsip officials fielded hundreds of calls and dispatched police to handle traffic near the cemetery in unincorporated Cook County.

Prosecutors said 200 to 300 bodies were dug up and dumped in an
isolated, weedy area of a cemetery at which many prominent
African-Americans are buried, including civil rights icon Emmett Till.
Exposed bones, chunks of concrete and broken coffins litter the hilly,
overgrown area about four blocks long, authorities said.

Former cemetery manager Carolyn Towns, 49, foreman Keith Nicks, 45,
and dump-truck operator Terrence Nicks, 39, all of Chicago, and
back-hoe operator Maurice Dailey, 59, of Robbins, were each charged with dismembering a human body, a Class X felony. All face up to 30 years in prison.

"This crime, it's a whole new dimension that shows us what lengths
people will go to for financial gain," said State's Atty. Anita Alvarez.

Sheriff Tom Dart said investigators, including dozens of FBI agents,
would be at Burr Oak for months sorting through the discarded piles of
bones. Not only were remains heaved into a "dump area" at the cemetery,
bodies were allegedly double-buried in existing plots, Dart said.

"Literally, they were pounded [down]," he said. "They pounded the other [body] down and put someone on top."