Clark Morgan also owned and operated Heights Crematory in Chicago, but it was shut down in 2025 after investigators found bodies there had been mishandled, county records show., external
“It is extremely disturbing that the same individuals who appear to be involved with the events at South Side Chapel are the same persons,” Michael Sharkey, general counsel at the Illinois Funeral Directors Association, said in a statement.
Sharkey told the BBC he was the one to initially report the incident at Heights Crematory last year that led the Morgans to close the facility and have their license suspended.
“Why wasn’t the comptroller watching these people,” Sharkey said about the latest incident, adding that in general he thinks the IDFPR has done a good job.
He explained that while funeral homes are subject to national regulations set by the Federal Trade Commission, those laws mostly have to do with pricing and contracts.
Each state has their own set of individual rules and regulations that focus more on the day-to-day operations.
In Illinois, this includes what Sharkey described as “quite strict regulations on how decedents are to be handled”.
State law prohibits funeral homes from laying bodies on top of another, for example, he said.
“Every individual should have their own place in which they are stored,” he continued.
Another state regulation is called “chain of custody”, a required written log of every movement that the body makes from the time they enter the funeral home’s care. The funeral home maintains the log which the state will occasionally audit.
When asked if there are laws in Illinois that require routine inspection of funeral homes and chain of custody records, he replied: “There are supposed to be.”
Funeral directors are required to be licensed in Illinois.
Across the US, local and state authorities issue licences and conduct inspections, similarly to Illinois. Some states don’t require licenses at all.
In Colorado, where nearly 200 bodies were found at the Return to Nature funeral home in 2023, the state did not require operators to be licensed. That will now be required beginning in January 2027.
In the UK, a funeral director was sentenced to prison for 20 years after police discovered dozens of bodies and a half tonne of ashes inside the funeral home.
The incident sparked calls for regulation while fuelling years of nightmares for loved ones.
Dan Ford, president of the National Funeral Directors Association in the US, told the BBC he was “absolutely heartbroken” over the incident in Chicago.
“I feel for everybody that’s affected, all the families and loved ones,” he said.
