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This story contains details some might find distressing

Investigators are working to identify remains and notify families after nearly 60 improperly stored bodies were found at a Chicago funeral home.

The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office, which is leading the investigation, said the process could take days, as families wait to learn how their loved ones' remains were left "in various states of decomposition".

The medical examiner's office said it was alerted by state and federal authorities who made the discovery at South Chicago Chapel on Thursday.

US funeral home regulations are mostly set by states. Calls for stricter oversight have risen after a number of recent high-profile incidents.

South Chicago Chapel did not respond to multiple calls from the BBC for comment.

Authorities were said to have worked overnight taking bodies from the funeral home to start the identification process.

The funeral home's director, Johanna Morgan, had been "allowing multiple decedents to be kept in an unrefrigerated area with deplorable conditions including rodent infestation, causing decomposition and maggot infestation of the bodies", according to records seen by the BBC's media partner CBS News.

The state has suspended Morgan's license, according to a statement sent to the BBC by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR).

Images from the scene on Friday show Chicago officials going in and out of South Chicago Chapel loading body bags into vans.

One woman told CBS News Chicago that her deceased sister was supposed to be cremated at the funeral home, but now she is unsure if she was in fact given her sister's remains.

"We don't know if Melody is in there or not," Patrice Halliburton said. "So right now, we're more fearful... than we are angry. I'd rather save that anger for later when we know for sure what's going on."

According to the Illinois Secretary of State's website, the active business license of South Chicago Chapel lists Clark Morgan as president.

Clark Morgan - Johanna Morgan's husband - also had his funeral director's license revoked in 2024, IDFPR said.

'Extremely disturbing'

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.