Will identifying the thousands of jumbled bones at the Burr Oak Cemetary be possible?
CHICAGO — Human remains strewn amid overgrown weeds have deteriorated into jumbled bones. Paper records in a rusted metal cabinet have dissolved into dust. Days after horrified relatives learned that former workers at a historic black cemetery near Chicago allegedly dug up hundreds of bodies in a scheme to resell grave plots, relatives are learning that DNA likely won’t help them find their loved ones. The piles of bones and deteriorated records may make identifying many remains impossible. “Identifying everyone would be a tremendous long shot,” John Howard, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, said this week. Officials estimate that at least 300 of 100,000 graves were tampered with at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill., which is the burial place several famous Americans including civil rights-era lynching victim Emmett Till. Four former workers are charged with dumping exhumed bodies in a deserted field the size of four square blocks in order to resell grave p
