Skip to: Content
Skip to: Site Navigation
Skip to: Search
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2009
| Subscribe to Newser's RSS feeds RSS | Follow Newser on Twitter Twitter


12

Emmett Till's Casket Found 'Rusted, Battered'

Locals search for loved ones' graves at desecrated cemetery

Share

(Newser) – As Chicagoans mourned the desecration of a historic cemetery, the casket of civil rights icon Emmett Till was found rusted in a shack amid garbage and gravestones, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. “When we opened it up trying to find what we have, a family of possums ran out,” said the county sheriff. Till’s body had been exhumed in 2005 during an investigation of his 1955 killing.

The casket, displayed worldwide after Till’s death at age 14, a watershed of the civil rights movement, was meant to be used in a memorial. One of four workers charged in a body-excavation scheme at Burr Oak cemetery allegedly kept donations for the memorial for herself. Locals gathered at the cemetery to check on loved ones’ graves for fear they’d been dug up. “This is like having a funeral all over again,” said one.

Family members search for the graves of relatives July 9, 2009, after graves were discovered dug up and bodies dumped into unmarked mass graves in an alleged scheme to resell the plots.
Family members search for the graves of relatives July 9, 2009, after graves were discovered dug up and bodies dumped into unmarked mass graves in an alleged scheme to resell the plots.   (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
The Rev. Jesse Jackson stands in an area in the rear of Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip Ill. Thursday, July 9, 2009.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson stands in an area in the rear of Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip Ill. Thursday, July 9, 2009.   (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart, and Rev. Jesse Jackson talk before a news conference as family members search for the graves of relatives at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., Thursday, July 9, 2009.
Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart, and Rev. Jesse Jackson talk before a news conference as family members search for the graves of relatives at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., Thursday, July 9, 2009.   (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
This undated file photo shows Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago whose weighted body was found in the Tallahatchie River near the Delta community of Money, Miss., on Aug. 31, 1955.
This undated file photo shows Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago whose weighted body was found in the Tallahatchie River near the Delta community of Money, Miss., on Aug. 31, 1955.   (AP Photo/File)
« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow
OFF THE GRID
11.20.09
The Health-Care Wars Have Just Begun
11.19.09
Sarah Palin Deserves Some More Attention
12 comments
VIEWING:
 
Serenity
Jul 10, 09 10:07 AM CDT
If they make it to prison, they wont last long there. There are just some things that you don't mess with and this one is pretty high on the list. Reply
Vote up! Vote down!
+8
ArtfullyViscious
Jul 10, 09 10:23 AM CDT
WTF is going on in this world? First the kids being kicked out of the pool due to their complexion and now THIS? Why do we keep doing this to each other and ourselves? I'm not sure whether to cry or puke.... I'm so ashamed to be a white man anymore. Reply
Vote up! Vote down!
+4
IN RESPONSE:
Serenity
Jul 10, 09 10:29 AM CDT
Read the article and check the mug shots, this was a black on everyone crime. Whites need not apply.
Vote up! Vote down!
0
IN RESPONSE:
JonmarkP
Jul 10, 09 10:39 AM CDT
This isn't about race, because there is no such thing as "race." People are different colors, like dogs and horses. This is just capitalism at it's finest-these four made a profit, and didn't loot anyone's pension fund or bomb any children. They should be greeted as entrepreneurs and heroes by everyone but the families of the dead, who should get a small share of the profits to ease their pain. This is how we do things here!
Vote up! Vote down!
-2
IN RESPONSE:
RobN
Jul 10, 09 10:56 AM CDT
Hey Artfully, the people arrested in this case are black. Not sure what your shame over being a white man has to do with this case. This case has everything to do with greed, and nothing to do with race.
Vote up! Vote down!
+5

View all 12 comments »

LEAVE A
COMMENT Comment Policy
Facebook ConnectPost this comment to Facebook?

After connecting you will have the option to post your comment on your Facebook profile.

 

Related Newser Stories

13 Stories

 White House: 
 Beating Vid 
 'Chilling' 

Obama prepares to pitch Chitown Olympics as city reels from murder

Oct 1, 09 4:43 AM CDT
(Newser) - As Barack Obama prepares to make a pitch to hold the Olympics in his hometown, the White House is decrying a "chilling" videotaped beating death of a teenager in the same city. It's one of the most shocking things "you can ever see," White House spokesman Robert... More »

MORE ABOUT:
high school • Chicago • crime • White House • murder • gang violence • videotape • beatings • teenager • videotaped beating • Derrion Albert

 Chicago Student's 
 Beating Death 
 Caught on Tape 

Police beef up patrols after savage gang melee

Sep 28, 09 4:19 AM CDT
(Newser) - Chicago police are stepping up patrols today at a high school where a 16-year-old honor student's gruesome beating death in a gang melee was captured on video. Students scream in horror as Derrion Albert crumples to the ground and covers his head in vain as he's repeatedly pummeled with wooden... More »

MORE ABOUT:
high school • Chicago • crime • murder • gangs • video • death • gangsters • honor student • Derrion Albert

(Newser) - Police declared the whole of Burr Oak cemetery in the Chicago suburbs to be a crime scene last night, after hundreds of families reported empty or missing graves, including an entire section of the cemetery called Babyland, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Relatives will be barred from the site for about... More »

MORE ABOUT:
Chicago • grave robbing • Illinois • burial • cemetery • Emmett Till • Burr Oak Cemetery

13 Stories


US 
TwitterFollow @NewserUS on Twitter

 
Chicago • crime • murder • grave robbing • Illinois • Mississippi • civil rights • excavation • civil rights movement • Emmett Till • Burr Oak Cemetery

from our news partners