ALSIP, Ill. - Three gravediggers and a cemetery manager unearthed hundreds of corpses from a historic black cemetery south of Chicago, dumping some in a weeded area and double-stacking others in existing graves, in an elaborate scheme to resell the plots, authorities said yesterday. All four were charged with felonies.

Frantic relatives of the deceased descended on Burr Oak Cemetery - the final resting place of lynching victim Emmett Till and blues singers Willie Dixon and Dinah Washington - in hopes someone could tell them their loved ones' remains were not among the pile of bones that littered a remote area of the property in Alsip, 12 miles south of Chicago.

Some found apparently undisturbed plots, but others wandered, unable to locate loved ones.

"This is a mess. We can't find our people," said Ralph Gunn, 54, of Chicago, who filled out a report for authorities after a futile search for the headstones of his brother and nephew.

Others cried and clutched cemetery maps as they waited for a chance to look themselves. They listened as Sheriff Tom Dart said the displacement of bodies "was not done in a very delicate way," and that remains were dumped haphazardly, littered with shards of coffins. For graves stacked on top of each other, Dart said, it appeared they "pounded the other one down and put someone on top."

A visibly shaken Rev. Jesse Jackson voiced the mounting anger at those who would toss the bones of the dead like trash. "In my judgment, there should be no bail for them," he said. "There should be really a special place in hell for these graveyard thieves."

By late afternoon, orange flags marking grave sites that might have been disturbed could be seen throughout the 150-year-old cemetery, where as many as 1,000 burials are held a year. Officials took phone numbers and told family members they would call within 72 hours.

"I feel betrayed and violated," said Gregory Mannie, 54, a Chicagoan with four relatives buried at Burr Oak. "It's almost like killing them all over again," he said.

The suspects, all of whom are black, were identified as Carolyn Towns, 49; Keith Nicks, 45; and Terrence Nicks, 39 - all of Chicago - and Maurice Dailey, 61, of Robbins. They each have been charged with one count of dismembering a human body, a felony. Authorities said Towns also pocketed donations she elicited for an Emmett Till memorial museum.

The investigation was prompted in May, when a groundskeeper discovered skeletal remains in the part of the cemetery that was not supposed to be used. Around that time, the cemetery's Arizona-based owner, Perpetua Inc., called Cook County authorities to report the alleged financial wrongdoing.

Towns allegedly took cash for new graves, then instructed the three gravediggers to empty plots and move the remains to an unused part of the cemetery covered with chest-high grass. The grave of 14-year-old Emmett Till was not disturbed, Dart said, but he had no information about Washington and others.