Lawsuit filed in cemetery desecration

CHICAGO, July 10 (UPI) -- A family filed a lawsuit Friday seeking damages following revelations that graves were dug up at a historic black cemetery in suburban Chicago.

Lawyers for the family suing the owner of the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip said they plan to ask the court to certify the lawsuit as a class action, the Southtown Star reported.

The manager of the cemetery and three gravediggers were formally charged Thursday with desecrating bodies. They dug up remains to resell the plots and pocket the proceeds, a scheme that may have brought in as much as $300,000, investigators say.

The cemetery is owned by Perpetua Inc., based in Tucson. The lawsuit seeks appropriate reburial for the plaintiff's reburial and damages for emotional distress.

As many as 300 graves may have been desecrated, police said.

Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy lynched in Mississippi in 1955, was buried in Burr Oak. His original coffin, replaced when his body was exhumed four years ago, was found dumped in a shed.

Roshanda Washington Jones, Jeremy Washington, Jarvis L. Washington and Renia Washington are named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.