Chicago's Historic Burr Oak Cemetery Reopens After Grave-Selling Scheme

November 20, 2009 7:53 a.m. EST

Alsip, IL (AHN) - Burr Oak Cemetery opened on a limited basis on Thursday, allowing family members distraught since July, when grave workers were arrested for allegedly reselling plots and dismembering human bodies, to visit their loved ones for the first time.

Only 11 sections of the cemetery were opened to the public, following a systematic re-opening on a daily basis until all 45 sections of the cemetery have been opened on Nov. 25. Drive-in and walk-in traffic is prohibited until the entire graveyard opens on Nov. 27; visitors until then have to board a bus at the Burr Oak Cemetery Transportation Center along Cicero Avenue.

Four cemetery workers were arrested on July 9 for unearthing bodies and reselling plots n a scheme that allegedly lasted for years. Grave digger Maurice Dailey, 59, Keith Nicks, 45, Terrence Nicks, 39, and cemetery manager Carolyn Towns, 49, were charged with dismembering a human body, a class x felony.

In August, they were indicted on seven other counts: desecration of human remains, conspiracy to dismember multiple human bodies, removal of a gravestone or marker, removal of remains of multiple deceased human beings from a burial ground, and two counts of theft $100,000 to $500,000.

They have pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Authorities say the suspects excavated bodies, choosing old graves that had not been visited, and dumped these along with remains of crushed burial vaults in an area of the graveyard used for collecting garbage. They also "double stacked" graves, by digging up an existing plot to make this deeper and covering the original vault in the grave with dirt.

The scheme is believed to have lasted from Sept. 2003 to July 2009, and was done off the books to keep the cemetery owners from finding out.

One of Chicago's first black cemeteries, Burr Oak is now under a court-appointed receiver. The cemetery is home to about 100,000 graves, including Queen of Blues Dinah Washington and Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Chicago boy whose 1955 murder in Mississippi for allegedly flirting with a white woman helped spark the Civil Rights Movement.