The Illinois comptroller’s office announced it’s investigating Bohemian National Cemetery after a tip last month led investigators to find equipment failures and remains being improperly stored.
Investigators from the state comptroller’s office visited the North Park cemetery the morning after the July 22 tip and found “multiple equipment failures and some human remains waiting to be cremated that were not maintained at the proper temperature,” according to a statement the comptroller’s office issued Saturday.
The 35 remains have been cremated and returned to the respective families, the office said.
Bohemian National Cemetery Association was ordered to stop accepting decedents until the issues were resolved, which the state office said it has complied with so far. It could face fines, probation or suspension of its crematory authority license, according to a comptroller’s office spokesperson.
Bohemian National Cemetery Association didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The comptroller’s office said the cemetery’s visiting and operating hours are not affected by the investigation.
This comes a few days after a South Side funeral home, run by Johanna and Clark Morgan, was shut down by authorities following police finding 57 bodies “not refrigerated and in various states of decomposition,” the Sun-Times previously reported.
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation revoked Johanna Morgan’s funeral director and embalmer’s license last week. Clark Morgan previously held a director and embalmer license, which was revoked in 2024.
The Illinois comptroller’s office permanently shut down Heights Crematory in Chicago Heights — which was also run by the Morgans — last year after investigators found several improperly stored bodies and hundreds of cremated remains that “had never been returned to their families,” the office said in the statement.
In the wake of both investigations, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza said she was “thankful” for a state law going into effect Jan. 1 that would allow her office to “summarily suspend a crematory license without a prior hearing and immediately inspect the premises and records in egregious cases.”