Thousands wonder whether family member's grave was moved

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) - At least 30 graves were dug up and resold at a historic African-American cemetery near Chicago, in a scheme that has four cemetery employees facing felony charges, authorities said.

Detectives will further investigate Friday to see whether the scheme goes beyond the cemetery's manager and the three gravediggers who have been charged, said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.

The sheriff's office had assisted about 2,000 families worried about a family member's grave. Authorities transported 350 families to the cemetery to check on burial plots.

A preliminary investigation revealed that at least 30 graves had been dug up, but up to 300 might have been disturbed, Dart said.

"This was not done in a very, very delicate way, folks," he told reporters at a news conference Thursday.

"They would excavate a grave and would proceed to dump the remains wherever they found a place to do it in the back of the cemetery. This was not moving graves; this was not replacing graves. This was dumping of them."

In some cases, remains were stacked on top of one another. They "literally pounded the other one down," Dart said.

Authorities identified those charged as Carolyn Towns, an office manager for the cemetery, and gravediggers Keith Nicks, Terrance Nicks and Maurice Daley.

Each has been charged with dismembering a human body, a felony charge for which sentences range from six to 30 years, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said at the news conference.

Keith Nicks was being held in a medical unit because of a previous arm injury. Terrence Nicks and Daley were in jail. Towns had been taken to a hospital psychiatric ward, said a sheriff's department spokesman.

Steven Watkins, an attorney for Towns, said his client is innocent.

"Somebody is apparently making false accusations against my client," he said. "She's maintaining her innocence."

The Cook County state attorney's office said the other three charged were being represented by the public defender's office, and a message left at that office was not returned.

Authorities began investigating the cemetery - where, among others, lynching victim Emmett Till, blues legend Dinah Washington and some Negro League baseball players are buried - about six weeks ago, after receiving a call from its owners.

The owners had concerns about possible "financial irregularities" regarding the business, Dart told CNN.

Police went to the cemetery to investigate a financial crime and found much more, he said.

"This crime, it's a whole new dimension," Alvarez said. Authorities also suspect that Towns pretended to set up a memorial fund for Till and pocketed the money, Dart said.

He told CNN that groundskeepers, who have not been implicated in the scheme, have said that the grave of Till - whose 1955 lynching at age 14 helped spark the civil rights movement - has not been disturbed.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was also at the news conference, noted the high-profile names of some of those buried in the cemetery, but said, "everybody here is special, and every family has special needs and special hurt, special grief."

He added, "In my judgment, there should be no bail for them. There should be really a special place in hell for these graveyard thieves."

Most of the excavations occurred in back lots, where the plots were older and not frequently visited, Dart said earlier this week. However, other plots may have been disturbed as well.

The cemetery's owners - who could not be reached by CNN for comment - have operated it for more than five years but are not thought to be involved in the scam, Dart said.

He said the workers may have doctored records to cover their tracks, and noted that the cemetery holds all the records of who is buried and where.

"There's virtually no regulations whatsoever" for cemeteries, Dart said. "Most all of the documents and everything are housed here."

Investigators are trying to determine the scope of the scheme and plan to use thermal-imaging devices to determine whether other graves have been tampered with, Dart said.

The FBI, forensic scientists and area funeral directors have been called in to help in the investigation, he said.

"I don't even know what to tell you about the heartbreaking stories that I've been hearing from people, crying hysterically that they're going through the burial for the second time today," he said.

"And they're looking for answers and we're sitting there telling them, 'This is going to be very difficult. ...'

"We're trying to bring closure, but it's going to take a long time to do that."

– CNN's Katherine Wojtecki and Taylor Gandossy contributed to this report.