A macabre discovery in a Far South Side funeral home is once again revealing gaps in government oversight of facilities like the one in South Deering where authorities found dozens of decomposing bodies last week, according to lawmakers who called for state-level reform on Monday.
But before Springfield takes another swing at the issue, officials were still trying to pin down who could have prevented the nightmare scene uncovered Thursday — other than the Evergreen Park couple accused of mishandling the remains of more than 100 people at South Chicago Chapel, 2939 E. 95th St.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to stay in front of bad actors,” said state Rep. Marcus Evans, the South Side Democrat whose district includes the parlor. “We don’t want to make excuses. Whatever was done was not enough.”
It’s the second time in as many years lawmakers have been pressed to respond to ghoulish allegations against Clark and Johanna Morgan, the operators of South Chicago Chapel.
The Morgans also ran a Chicago Heights crematory that was shut down by the state last year for mishandling the remains of about 100 other people. That prompted a new state law expanding the regulatory authority of the Illinois comptroller’s office, which, in a quirk of state responsibilities, oversees crematories in addition to its fiscal duties.
But Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s office doesn’t regulate funeral directors or embalmers, who are licensed by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation under Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration. And apparently no state agency oversees funeral homes themselves, at their physical locations, officials said.
“We need to look at putting it all under one roof,” said state Rep. Diane Blair-Sherlock, D-Villa Park, who co-sponsored the 2025 crematory legislation and said facilities should be subject to quarterly inspections. “But neither of them are really set up with huge enforcement arms. … So I think that’s where we need to look and say, where would this best fit, and who would be willing to take it on?”
IDFPR officials were “on site” in Chicago Heights last year, according to Mendoza’s office, which had “urged IDFPR to take away Johanna Morgan’s funeral license” due to the crematory’s troubling conditions.
A spokesperson for Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke said any potential criminal case never materialized.
“We met with [the Illinois State Police] and the comptroller’s office, which had referred the case to ISP, and recommended that ISP continue its investigation and consider the possibility of financial crimes,” the state’s attorney’s office said. “We have not been subsequently contacted by ISP to review a completed investigation for consideration of charges.”
In November 2023, after Laura Godina’s 91-year-old father died, she turned to Heights Crematory in Chicago Heights to have him cremated. A few months later, her mother, 89, died as well. She again turned to Heights Crematory for the cremation. But something always bothered her because her father was much larger in size than her mother.
“My concern is that the amount of my dad’s remains in the urn is very small. There’s very little in there. But the urn for my mom is full,” Godina said in her native Spanish. “I’m worried about what they handed over to me.”
“I feel disappointed because we hired them for a service. We paid for a service. I feel sad and guilty because I trusted them — I really trusted them — and they let me down,” Godina added. “I don’t know how they treated my parents, who were the most sacred, most beautiful thing to me. They (Morgans) toyed with my feelings; they let me down. I feel so disappointed, so disappointed in them.”
Clark Morgan had already lost his funeral director’s license the year before, for “unprofessional conduct” and was working on an expired license in 2024, IDFPR records show.
“We also referred our findings and met with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and [Illinois State Police] in hopes of criminal charges being filed,” comptroller spokesperson Kim Howard said.
Representatives for those agencies didn’t have any immediate comment on the claim from Mendoza, who’s running for Chicago mayor.
State response
An IDFPR spokesman didn’t have any comment on last year’s communications, but Sec. Mario Treto Jr. said in a statement Friday that his agency “acted swiftly and decisively” to suspend Johanna Morgan’s license after receiving “information about potential operational concerns” at South Chicago Chapel on July 31.
IDFPR opened a complaint, inspected the site and suspended her license Aug. 5 for allegedly allowing “decedents to be kept in an unrefrigerated area with deplorable conditions including rodent infestation, causing decomposition and maggot infestation of the bodies.”
Clark Morgan escorted investigators through the home, according to a Chicago police report. An attorney for the couple hasn’t commented.
Besides the 56 bodies found in South Chicago Chapel, authorities also found 56 boxes of cremated remains, officials confirmed Monday.
A spokesperson for the Cook County medical examiner’s office said they are storing the cremated remains found at the funeral home, and the Chicago Police Department is locating next of kin for these remains.
The medical examiner’s office had positively identified 11 of the 56 bodies found in the funeral home, and 10 of those families have been notified. Two bodies had been released to new funeral homes. Authorities were still working to identify the remaining 45.
“While IDFPR issues licenses and regulates funeral directors, and does not regulate funeral homes or crematoriums, the Department communicates regularly and promptly with the Illinois Office of the Comptroller, state and local law enforcement, and other local partners to address any form of known misconduct,” Treto said.
At an unrelated downstate campaign event Monday, Pritzker said, “the comptroller’s office did what they should do with the crematory. IDFPR did what it is supposed to do with regard to a funeral home and funeral directors, and so those, I think, seemingly were handled properly. … We’re talking about some really bad actors.”
Neighborhood nuisance
Neighbors had long complained about a stench and flies emanating from the funeral home. But local Ald. Peter Chico (10th) said the smell might have been obscured by another nearby nuisance producing intense odors in recent months: Pullman Innovations, a manufacturing company that processes edible oils into animal feed ingredients.
That smell was the subject of a May 20 community meeting in Chico’s Southeast Side ward.
“The stench from Pullman was so strong and putrid, that the funeral home never came up,” Chico said. “It’s been an ongoing problem for 50 years with the company before that … and after Pullman took over.”
Chico said the only complaints his office received about South Chicago Chapel — before last week’s gruesome discovery — focused on “gang funerals being held” at the now-shuttered facility.
“When they started operating, there were large crowds of people outside and community members did complain. It started probably seven or eight months ago,” Chico said.
“We alerted the Chicago Police Department. They’ve been there monitoring funerals. … They sent officers there to have discussions with the owners. We even asked the funeral home to provide security,” but it was never done.
Although he is horrified by last week’s discovery and the agony it has compounded for grieving families, Chico said he believes he did all he could at the local level.
“We asked them to be more respectful of the community they’re operating in. They said they were going to work on it. They were gonna be mindful. They were gonna be a good partner,” Chico said. “Bringing them to the community. Having the police involved. From my end, I did all I could.”
As of Monday evening, another mortuary was still advertising its business at 2939 E. 95th St. A person who answered the phone said the mortuary had a limited contractor relationship with South Chicago Chapel, but wouldn’t further describe their dealings. The funeral director of the mortuary was reprimanded and fined by IDFPR in 2019 “for failure to file a death certificate in a timely manner.”
Property taxes haven’t been paid on the chapel the past two years, county records show. The manager of a company that previously received the property tax bill said they sold the building in 2023.
Contributing: Elijah James, Mariah Woelfel and Isabela Nieto