CHICAGO — The Young family hired South Chicago Chapel to prepare Keith, one of seven siblings, father of three and garage door installer, for his visitation. They gathered at a Baptist church on the West Side Thursday and waited to receive his body.

As the hours ticked by, the family grew anguished. They called the funeral home director, Johanna Morgan, who told them there was police activity in the neighborhood blocking the way but promised to deliver Keith for visitation.

He never made it.

“They had us under the impression that there was some kind of investigation going on outside the funeral home which hindered them from being able to move around,” recalled Leetonie Young, Keith’s older brother. “We were under the impression the police would finally let them do what they were supposed to be doing, not knowing the police presence was about them.”

The family’s experience came after authorities recovered 56 bodies from South Chicago Chapel, removing them slowly throughout the night and into the morning and driving them to the morgue for the painful process of reuniting them with their families.

Records obtained by the Tribune reveal a harrowing scene at the funeral home and a history of problems at a previous crematorium run by its owners. Nearly five dozen decomposing bodies were discovered during a walkthrough of the business at 2939 E. 95th St. after a complaint was filed 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.

Inside the funeral home, sources told the Tribune, authorities encountered bodies on gurneys but also on shelves alongside equipment. Some of the bodies were not bagged, and some appeared to have severed limbs.

Late Friday, a police spokesman said Calumet Area (Area 5) detectives are conducting a criminal investigation.

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the funeral director as Clark Morgan, who previously held a funeral director and embalmer intern license before it was revoked by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation in 2024, records show.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

Troubled past

Records available on the IDFPR’s website show regulators temporarily suspended Johanna Morgan’s funeral director and embalmer license Wednesday. Johanna Morgan allowed multiple bodies to be “kept in an unrefrigerated area with deplorable conditions including rodent infestation, causing decomposition and maggot infestation,” according to IDFPR records.

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.

“There were bodies sort of stacking up at this crematory,” said Abdon Pallasch, formerly a spokesman for the comptroller’s office, last year.

More than two dozen lawsuits have been filed against Heights Crematory and the Morgans since state regulators closed the facility last year.

Families and businesses contacted by the Tribune were shocked to learn of the South Chicago Chapel owners’ history.

Late Thursday, two black cars from Indiana-based Emmanuel Funeral Home & Cremation Services approached the police tape to pick up a family’s loved one. Christopher Jennings, a pastor with the home, said they waited all day for their calls to be returned.

“We kept calling, we kept calling,” he said. “No answer.”

Emmanuel Funeral hadn’t worked with South Chicago Chapel prior to Thursday.

“We couldn’t get the chance to provide the services that we would like for the family because we’re stuck trying to get in contact with the funeral home,” Jennings said.

Jennings, who’s been with Emmanuel Funeral for two years, said it’s important to ensure death care is conducted correctly, for the safety of their staff and for the dignity and respect of families.

“It’s kind of devastating because we don’t know what’s going on,” Jennings said.

Regulatory response

The discovery of corpses set off a regulatory blame game as officials sought to understand what happened and what systems failed.

Ald. Peter Chico, who represents the 10th Ward where South Chicago Chapel is located, said he visited the funeral home multiple times since police called him on Thursday.

Chico called on state officials to reexamine the policies regulating funeral homes to prevent similar tragedies.

“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.

Illinois comptroller Susana Mendoza, whose office has some investigative authority over crematories and shut down the Chicago Heights crematory owned by Clark Morgan last year, on Friday said businesses that mishandle human remains need to be dealt with as quickly as possible.

But the IDFPR, not the comptroller’s office, is responsible for licensing funeral home directors such as Johanna Morgan.

While Mendoza didn’t know the details of IDFPR’s oversight of South Chicago Chapel, the department was “on site with us, with our office, a year and a half ago when the crematory situation at Chicago Heights was happening,” she said. “So they were clearly well aware that these were terrible, terrible actors who didn’t run a crematory but instead ran a house of horrors.”

The appearance that “these same operators” were causing similar issues at the funeral home is “infuriating,” said Mendoza, who is also running for mayor.

A spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation on Friday declined to discuss specifics of the investigation at the funeral home. The department had previously confirmed it investigated the South Chicago Chapel home and suspended Johanna Morgan’s license.

“After learning of the situation at the funeral home, IDFPR alerted local agencies, and IDFPR investigators are working with them to ensure all appropriate regulatory and public‑safety steps are taken,” agency spokesperson Steven Johnson said in an email to the Tribune late Thursday.

Illinois notably tightened state oversight on funeral homes in 2024 following a finding that a central Illinois business had given dozens of families the wrong remains. Under the updated law, IDFPR is required to inspect funeral homes within 10 days of receiving a complaint about mishandling or misidentification of human remains.

Mendoza on Friday called for the state to consolidate oversight power for funeral home directors and crematories under just one entity — either her office or IDFPR — instead of splitting it between multiple regulators.

“No one’s perfect, but certainly you want to make sure that you have a tight understanding of what’s happening in each and every one of your agencies,” Mendoza said. “Like, when I find out that things are happening, I better get on top of it right away. And so, I would anticipate that the governor is going to look much more forcefully into what’s happening, what has or has not been done.”

“That’s a responsibility that he will, I would hope, take on quickly,” she said.

Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday said he was “listening to IDFPR about what processes the funeral home went through,” and what, if anything, could have been done to prevent the “awful” situation discovered last week.

Still, he questioned whether the issues lay with monitoring and licensing or with the individuals running the business.

“I do want to point out that the bad actor here is the funeral home, and that they’ve done something just horrific,” Pritzker said. “And we’ve got to make sure and hold them responsible, and of course look at all the processes for licensing.”

Broken promise

On Thursday night, Daceana Wright rushed to the chapel. She parked just outside a strip of police tape blocking off the funeral home and jumped out of the driver’s seat.

Her mother’s funeral was held at the building three weeks ago, on July 18. Wright had been patiently waiting for an update from the director, who promised to deliver her mother’s ashes within three weeks.

But when Wright heard the news that dozens of decomposing bodies were found in the building, kept without refrigeration in a basement, storage containers and closets, she headed straight to the site.

Searching for anyone who could give her any piece of information, Wright walked around the scene until she spotted two officers. She called out to them, asking if they had any knowledge about victims.

She gave an officer her mom’s name. The officer directed Wright to the medical examiner’s office. Wright thanked the officer and walked away. But before leaving the scene, Wright paused outside the funeral home.

Something in her was telling her that her mom was among those inside.

The next day, she called Planet Green Cremations, a business she said she was told was connected to South Chicago Chapel. A woman she believes was Johanna Morgan picked up.

“I said hello, she said hello. I was like, I was calling to check on my mom’s ashes,” Wright told the Tribune. “She asked me my mom’s name and she hung up on me once I gave it to her.”

State business records show Johanna Morgan as an officer of the business, which advertises on its website: “We realize that Money is for the living and we keep our prices low in order to help the families we serve.”

An attorney for Planet Green Cremations didn’t immediately respond to a phone call requesting comment Friday.

“I’m just hoping and praying she isn’t a victim,” Wright said. “She don’t deserve to be sitting in a basement.”

‘This is pain’

Keith Young’s funeral was scheduled for Friday.

Instead, his family stood outside of the medical examiner’s office hand in hand and prayed for answers.

“It’s unimaginable,” pastor Venus Vaughn said steps away from the Near West Side offices late Friday morning, where remains were still coming in from South Chicago Chapel. Two dozen of Keith’s loved ones huddled around Vaughn in a circle. His services should have started already.

“This is pain, this is hurt, this is disaster,” Vaughn prayed in a low voice.

Over Vaughn’s words, one family member joined the pleas. “Hallelujah!” she called out, still clutching her loved ones’ hands on either side of her. She cried.

Loved ones had planned to retrieve Keith’s body Thursday afternoon. His visitation was scheduled from 4 to 6 p.m. at a church in Garfield Park. At 3:30 p.m., Keith’s older sister Angela Young heard from other family that her brother’s remains hadn’t yet arrived at the church.

By 7:30 p.m. that night, as the roads outside South Chicago Chapel remained closed and police continued to monitor the scene, Keith’s family had briefly exchanged messages between the funeral home, they recalled. They were told, loved ones said, that what was going on didn’t involve the business. They thought they would still be able to lay Keith to rest come Friday.

“I thought we was gonna … say our goodbyes for the last time,” Angela, 53, said. “When we get his body back, we might not even recognize who he is.”

Angela said her brother, who died July 26, loved his family and would do anything for anybody.

“I think people would have loved to just sit and talk to him,” she said.

In the wake of her brother’s death, Angela said she and their other five siblings had come together to pay for Keith’s services.

“(We) exhausted everything that (we) had,” Angela said. “I mean, just everything is gone now. We don’t have no more money to pay anybody to come and get his body.”

On the landing page of South Chicago Chapel’s website, the funeral home boasts in bold type: “Our prices are here to help families, not hurt them.”

Angela said she and her family are looking for answers.

“Nobody’s answering questions,” she said. “We just pray that nobody else has to go through this, and I pray these people are held accountable for what they did.”

Just after noon, Keith’s niece, Deja Young, walked into the medical examiner’s office to see if someone could step outside to speak with her family, who waited along the sidewalk. Staff told the 28-year-old they’d try to find someone.

A half hour later, two people from the county office briefly addressed the family. The investigation was ongoing and bodies were still being transported, the staff members relayed. They asked for the family’s contact information and said their office would reach out.

Late Friday, the medical examiner’s office announced that it would be handling cremation services at no cost to families, should they choose that option. The office also stated that families would have the opportunity to work with a funeral home of their choice to make final arrangements.

Deja said her uncle was funny and always made people laugh. He made people feel safe, she said. She’d made the obituary for her uncle’s funeral. The small booklet was filled with family pictures. The last page was lined with poems penned by his siblings.

It’d been a few years since Deja had last seen her uncle in person. But she talked to him on the phone a couple of months ago — they spent time just catching up.

“This would have been my last time to be able to see him,” Deja said, her voice shaking. “But now, that’s taken from me.”

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(Chicago Tribune’s Allison Kiehl, Caroline Kubzansky, Arthur Maiorella, Jake Sheridan, Madeline Buckley, Armando L. Sanchez and Sam Charles contributed.)

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