Emmett Till's Casket Found 'Rusted, Battered'

(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 the next week. The local sheriff believes well over 300 graves were excavated by four employees who dumped remains in a mass grave and resold their plots. More»

Illinois cemetery employees excavated graves, dumped remains for cash

(NEWSER) - 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. More»

Cops probing 'domestic situation'

(NEWSER) - A suburban Chicago bride still wearing her wedding gown was found stabbed to death in the bathtub of her home. Estrella Carrera, 26, was discovered by police just days after her wedding to a 30-year-old Chicago man, whose name was not released. Cops are investigating the killing as a "domestic situation," but refused to release any further details. Carrera was last seen alive just hours after her wedding. Her sister became concerned when Carrera failed to pick up her two young children, reports ABC News . Carrera was married in a "hastily planned" wedding to the father of her younger child, reports the Chicago Sun-Times . The two had an on again, off again relationship, said the paper. More»

Cops race clock to save daughters from kidnapper

(NEWSER) - The bodies of a Tennessee mom and her teenage daughter have been discovered, and police are in a race against time to save two younger sisters snatched by the suspected killer. Jo Ann Bain, 31, and her 14-year-old daughter, Adrienne, were discovered dead behind the Mississippi home of murder suspect Adam Mayes, said local police, who did not reveal how they were killed. Bain's two younger daughters, 12-year-old Alexandria and Kyliyah, 8, are still missing. "Time is clearly of the essence," a former FBI agent told ABC News . "If we have the mother who is dead and one of her daughters, law enforcement has every reason to believe that the other two daughters are definitely in jeopardy." More»

Jackson State student shot dead next day at off-campus party

(NEWSER) - A Mississippi State University student was fatally shot in a dorm on Saturday, and a second student attending a Mississippi college was killed at an off-campus party yesterday. John Sanderson, 21, died shortly after three suspects fled his Starkville residence hall. "The perpetrators fled our campus, but we're still attempting to identify them, and we're following every lead in order to do that," said spokesman Bill Kibler. The campus has not been locked down, but only residents are being allowed in and out of dorm, and are being carefully screened, reports ABC News . Officials believe the shooting, the first ever on campus, is an isolated incident. More»