Exhumation at Ill. cemetery finds 1 body in grave

ALSIP, Ill. — Only one body, and nothing abnormal, was found Saturday in an exhumed grave at a historic black cemetery in suburban Chicago after authorities had been told they would discover two bodies stacked on top of each other.

Four former employees are accused of digging up hundreds of corpses and dumping them in a scheme to resell burial plots at Burr Oak Cemetery, home to the graves of civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till and blues singer Dinah Washington.

An attorney for the cemetery's owner told Cook County authorities they would find two bodies in the grave, a sheriff's spokeswoman said Saturday morning. But that turned out to not be the case.

Workers dug 7 feet down during a court-ordered exhumation and found only one body in the grave of Rachel Boone, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said Saturday afternoon. Boone's son had long suspected that there was another body buried underneath her, and the exhumation was scheduled before the current investigation began.

Authorities declared portions of the cemetery a crime scene and closed it Friday after thousands of relatives showed up looking for the graves of loved ones. Families continued to arrive Saturday morning. Lines snaked out of white tents, where people were given forms to fill out.

"It's a zoo and it's going to be a zoo because every black person in Chicago has someone buried here," said Chicago resident Jennifer Gyimah, 51, who was waiting to check on family members buried at the cemetery. "As a living human being, you give dignity to the dead. The dignity today has been shattered."

Officials said they'd try to respond to families in the next week.