Crime & Law

Investigation Underway After Dozens of Decomposing Bodies Found in Chicago Funeral Home

Chicago officials are investigating after dozens of decomposing bodies were discovered Thursday inside a funeral home on the city’s Southeast Side.

Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza — who is running for mayor in next year’s election — said in a statement Friday more than 50 bodies had been found in the South Chicago Chapel funeral home, calling the discovery “heartbreaking and an abomination.”

“These are people — someone’s mother, father, sister, brother, child or friend, and they deserve better,” she said.

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 funeral home operators have not yet been charged with a crime in this incident. Both Johanna and Clark Morgan are listed in Cook County court records as defendants in connection with lawsuits involving Heights Crematory in Chicago Heights, south of Chicago.

A Chicago Police Department spokesperson said 4th District officers responded to the funeral home — located in the 2900 block of E. 95th St. — at around 2 p.m. Thursday to assist the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation with a license investigation.

On scene, they discovered human remains, the spokesperson said. The CPD previously said the Chicago Fire Department had declared a hazardous material (HAZMAT) incident, but later stated that information was incorrect.

The CPD spokesperson said Area 2 Detectives are conducting an ongoing investigation and that no additional updates were available as of Friday morning.

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)

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office said it was notified by state and local officials that bodies were being stored improperly at South Chicago Chapel, and investigators and forensic pathologists were dispatched. The remains were in various states of decomposition, officials said.

“Staff is assessing the conditions of the remains, searching for documentation regarding identification of the decedents as well as death certificates. This process could take several days to ensure proper disposition,” the medical examiner’s office said in a statement.

Mendoza said that although at-need funeral homes like this one are not under her jurisdiction, 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 January 1, 2027.

“Losing someone is unimaginable,” Mendoza said, “but 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.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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