Horrified. Again. The discovery of decomposing remains waiting to be laid to rest this week at a South Side funeral home is heartbreaking. This is an abomination. These are people – someone’s mother, father, sister, brother, child or friend. They and their loved ones deserve better. I will never stop fighting for their dignity.
While at-need funeral homes like South Chicago Chapel are not under the jurisdiction of the Illinois Office of Comptroller (IOC), the IOC is familiar with the operators, Johanna & Clark Morgan of South Chicago Chapel Funeral Home and their egregious past practices while operating the Heights Crematory.
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) handles the physical operations and professional credentials of funeral homes. IDFPR licenses and disciplines the actual funeral directors and embalmers, and investigates operational issues like professional incompetence, vital records noncompliance, or the improper handling of human remains.
Last year, the IOC permanently shut down their other business, Heights Crematory in Chicago Heights, after the discovery of several improperly stored bodies and hundreds of cremated remains that had never been returned to their families. Many of the bodies were stacked on top of each other, not refrigerated and partially exposed. Cremations were delayed and record keeping was abysmal.
To hear these same operators are doing the same thing again at South Chicago Chapel Funeral Home is infuriating.
The situation at Heights led to my office spearheading legislation that gives the IOC more investigative authority over crematories, authorizes the IOC to summarily suspend a crematory license immediately without a prior hearing in extreme cases, allows us to immediately inspect premises and records after receiving a complaint, and raises maximum penalties to $10,000 per violation. The bill was signed into law this summer and will take effect January 1, 2027.
Losing someone is unimaginable. To lose someone and then live in fear that their remains are treated with anything less than the utmost respect and dignity is unconscionable and beyond any scope of human decency.
I am praying for those grieving and hopeful that the Morgans are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The Chicago Police Department requests that any inquiries or tips be directed to the general Area 2 Detective Division’s phone number: 312-747-8721