Crime & Law
Activist Calls for FBI Investigation as Cook County Medical Examiner Works to Identify Bodies Found at South Deering Funeral Home
Chicago police investigate South Chicago Chapel after authorities discovered dozens of decomposing bodies in the funeral home's basement on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026. (Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere / Chicago Sun-Times via AP)
A local activist is calling for a federal investigation while the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office is asking families to contact them as they seek to identify the more than 50 decomposing bodies discovered last week inside a South Deering funeral home.
The office said it’s working to reunite family members and loved ones of those whose remains were stored at the South Chicago Chapel, where 56 improperly stored bodies were discovered.
Both the medical examiner’s office and Chicago Police Department launched investigations after officials said those bodies were found in “various states of decomposition” last week.
On Monday, community activist Rabbi Michael Ben Yosef called on the FBI to launch a federal investigation into the funeral home’s operators and the oversight processes that allowed them to continue operating their funeral home after past allegations.
“Families turn to funeral homes during some of the most difficult moments of their lives,” he said at a news conference Monday. “And that trust must be protected.”
State business records show that funeral director Johanna Morgan incorporated South Chicago Chapel Inc. in 2022 and her funeral director’s license was temporarily suspended on Wednesday.
The Illinois Funeral Directors Association said the circumstances found at the South Chicago Chapel are “unacceptable and do not represent the standards, ethics, or values of the funeral service profession in Illinois.”
“Funeral directors are entrusted with families at one of the most vulnerable moments of their lives,” the group, which is the largest association serving licensed funeral service professionals in Illinois, said in a statement. “With that trust comes an extraordinary responsibility, one that must never be taken lightly.”
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza said at-need funeral homes like the South Chicago Chapel are not under her jurisdiction, but her office is familiar with its operators and their “egregious past practices” when they previously ran a crematorium.
She said her office last year permanently shut down the operator’s other business, the 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,” Mendoza said in a statement. “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.”
According to Mendoza, the situation in Chicago Heights led her office to push for new legislation allowing the comptroller’s office to summarily suspend a crematory license immediately without a prior hearing in extreme cases. That legislation, which also increases the maximum penalty to $10,000 per violation, is set to take effect Jan. 1, 2027.
The medical examiner’s office said it will contact family members to make final arrangements after their loved one has been positively identified.
The office will handle the cremation of the remains at no cost for all families who choose that option, but families will also have the opportunity to work with a funeral home of their choice to make other arrangements if they so choose.
The medical examiner is asking family members who believe their loved one’s remains may have been at the South Chicago Chapel to provide their office with their names, contact information and relationship to the decedent and the name, as well as the date of birth and date of death of the decedent at [email protected].
