CHICAGO — Authorities on Friday began the grim task of removing remains from a South Deering funeral home on the city’s Southeast Side, as police continued to investigate after the decomposing bodies of more than 50 people were found Thursday.

Personnel on scene rolled out one body at a time, wrapped in white bags, as city and state officials began to grapple with the scope of identifying and handling the remains, while community members and politicians condemned the treatment of people’s loved ones and called for more regulation.

“Something needs to happen to the owner and those who were working for him,” said Frida Najera, 29, who lives nearby and watched the body removal process unfold Friday morning. “They know what was happening.”

The decomposing bodies were discovered during a walkthrough of the South Chicago Chapel at at 2939 E. 95th St. after a complaint was filed on Monday reporting that remains were not being properly stored at or below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, in accordance with state regulations, according to a police incident report.

During a walkthrough of the facility, a state regulator and three officers encountered the remains of 57 people stored in different areas of the funeral home unrefrigerated, the report stated. The regulator said the business’ license was revoked Wednesday.

The Cook County medical examiner’s office said in a statement late Thursday night that it sent investigators and forensic pathologists to the funeral home earlier in the day after state and city officials had notified the office of “decedents improperly stored” at the funeral home.

The police report said the “funeral director” initially told the officers that, per his attorney’s instructions, he would not allow police back into the business without a warrant. After police told him that a business license check could be performed at any time during business hours, The man locked the doors and left the scene, the report stated.

The report identified the funeral director as Clark Morgan, who previously held a funeral director and embalmer intern license before it was revoked by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation in 2024, records show.

According to the state agency, the registered funeral director for the business is actually his wife, Johanna Morgan.

Records available on the IDFPR’s website show regulators temporarily suspended Johanna Morgan’s funeral director and embalmer license Wednesday.

Attorneys for the Morgans did not respond to requests for comment. No one answered the door at the Morgans’ southwest suburban home Friday morning.

In 2025, a crematory in south suburban Chicago Heights owned by Clark Morgan was shut down by state officials after the remains of more than 100 bodies were found improperly stored.

More than two dozen lawsuits have been filed against Heights Crematory and the Morgans since state regulators closed the facility last year. Those complaints, alleging improper handling of remains, have since been consolidated.

After the crematory was closed, the medical examiner’s office created a public database to help families recover their loved one’s remains. As of Friday, more than 460 people remained on that list.

Karen Enright, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said in an interview with the Tribune that many of her clients “have to constantly question themselves.”

“A number of my clients have nightmares about this, and they feel guilty because they’re the ones that, perhaps, chose the funeral home,” Enright said. “They’re the ones that chose the crematory. They thought they were following their loved one’s wishes.”

In some instances, Enright said, families learned that the remains they buried were not, in fact, their loved one.

“I have families that, maybe, have lost a child or lost a family member at a young age and buried them with other family members, only to find out that what they buried with their other family members is not the right remains,” Enright added. “The trauma that these families have to go through in that realization… Even just the body being improperly handled and disrespected in that manner is traumatic.”

Ald. Peter Chico, 10th, whose ward includes the funeral home, said the improper storage was “horrifying” and called on state officials to reexamine policies regulating funeral homes.

“Just to think about the lack of humanity that those bodies were handled with, and really the families, my heart goes out to the families who are now wondering about the remains of their loved ones,” he said.

Chico said he previously met with the Morgans, as he meets with every new business owner in his ward, and asked them about reports of past wrongdoing in connection with the Chicago Heights crematory.

“They really kind of didn’t offer much at that time,” he said. “The investigation was pretty damning, and it’s unfortunate that they would do this again after they were caught.”

Neighbors told the Tribune that they’ve been smelling something akin to a dead animal in the area for around two months. The funeral home had been active, staging a funeral as recently as last week, a resident said.

As she watched authorities work the scene on Friday, Najera said that she’s lived off South Exchange Avenue for her whole life and had never seen a sight like it.

“It’s devastating,” she said. “I don’t have any words.”

The investigation is not the first into the funeral industry in the Chicago area.

In July 2009, authorities revealed that workers at the historic Burr Oak Cemetery were reselling graves and dumping hundreds of old remains in an abandoned, weed-covered lot.

The former director of Burr Oak was sentenced to 12 years in prison for her role in the macabre scheme reselling occupied burial plots and dumping their first human remains in a hidden field.

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