The city of Chicago is suing the owners of the South Chicago Chapel, weeks after dozens of improperly stored, decomposing bodies were discovered at the facility in what city attorneys claim was an “immensely unsanitary” situation.

This August, Chicago police discovered more than 50 decomposing bodies stored improperly at a South Side funeral home.

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 Southeast Side funeral home.

Barbara Deer, 51, and her son Kaleb Deer, 23, were identified by Cook County Medical Examiner records as the two people killed at a Homan Square home Tuesday.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office is hosting its sixth annual Missing Persons Day event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. The event aims to connect people with resources to locate missing loved ones.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office is hosting its fourth Missing Persons Day on Saturday as a way to provide support and resources for the loved ones of missing persons.

Ninety percent of the opioid overdose deaths involved fentanyl, according to Cook County’s Medical Examiner’s Office. 

Jean Carlos Martinez was a resident at a warehouse retrofitted as a shelter in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood when he suffered a medical emergency, the city said. He was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at a hospital Sunday afternoon.

Since the beginning of 2023, Cook County Jail administration has reported 16 deaths in custody, with five attributed to overdoses, according to Cook County Medical Examiner records. To address the uptick in overdose deaths, jail leadership took unprecedented measures, including what some called a facility-wide paper ban. 

Authorities discovered the body of 73-year-old Myrtle Brown on Saturday after relatives alerted police they’d been unable to find or contact her or her son, the Maywood Police Department said in a news release.

There were 103 overdose deaths attributable to fentanyl in Cook County in 2015. That number shot up to a record 1,825 in 2022, according to statistics from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. That accounts for more than 90% of all opioid-related deaths in the county.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy announced the designation Wednesday, the first time the office has used it since the category for fast-growing drug dangers was created in 2019.

The veterinary drug was connected to a rising death toll in Cook County and across the state. The new restrictions aim to prevent the drug from entering the U.S. market for illicit purposes.

Data from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office shows 146 opioid-related deaths last year where xylazine was listed as a primary cause, marking a 16.8% increase from 2021. Local harm reduction organizations have also seen an uptick in its use.

The key culprit appears to be the widespread availability of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.

More than 1,000 homicides have been recorded in Cook County so far this year. In the suburbs, Harvey has seen the highest total of homicides with 30.