Cemetery Workers Dug Up Bodies, Resold Graves

Four employees of a historic Chicago-area cemetery face charges after police uncovered a gruesome scheme to excavate graves, remove the human remains, and resell the plots, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. One manager and three grave diggers at Burr Oak Cemetery are charged with dismembering a human body, which carries of a sentence of 6 to 30 years. Cook County police estimate the quartet dug up about 300 graves and made hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Under the alleged scheme, they would arrange the sale of a new burial, excavate an existing grave, dump the remains in a mass grave on the outskirts of the cemetery, and pocket the money. Others may be charged. “There should be really a special place in hell for these graveyard thieves," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said.
(More grave robbing stories.)