Seven minutes. That is how long the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection (BACP) spent on a Sept. 26, 2025, inquiry about South Chicago Chapel before marking it "Completed," according to agency records obtained by Illinois Answers Project and Capitol News Illinois. The inquiry came from the office of Ald. Peter Chico (10th Ward), whose staff had learned that the couple operating the funeral home, Clark and Johanna Morgan, had run Heights Crematory in Chicago Heights, a facility the state shut down in 2025 over 100 improperly stored bodies on the site.
The city never referred Chico's concern to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR), the state agency that licenses funeral directors. Asked whether the city should have made that referral, a BACP spokesperson said: "when the alderman reached out to BACP, we responded."
Illinois Answers Project and Capitol News Illinois obtained the previously unreported records and reported them Aug. 27, 2026. The story is a collaboration between the two newsrooms, by Casey Toner and Maggie Dougherty. WTTW republished it the same day.
The Sept. 26 inquiry was the second time in a week that Chico's office complained to the city. The first came on Sept. 17, 2025, when the office submitted a 311 complaint alleging "open burning" at the chapel, at 2939 E. 95th St.; the system logged it as an air pollution odor or dust complaint, service request SR25-01709020. Two days later, a Chicago Department of Environment inspector visited the property. He spent 20 minutes on the scene and took a few photos, including one of an empty gurney in the funeral home's parking lot. A resident told him the smell came from someone burning his trash can, according to his report, and he dismissed the complaint. His narrative ran 67 words and gave no indication that he tried to go inside.
A spokesperson for the Department of Environment said the inspection was sufficient because the assignment was an open burning complaint, and the funeral home itself fell outside that scope.
The records conflict with the alderman's public account. Chico told the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this month that the only complaints his office received about South Chicago Chapel before the discovery of the bodies were related to alleged "gang funerals" held at the facility. City records show his office reported odor complaints and resident concerns in September 2025. The Sept. 26 complaint from his office read: "We have received odor complaints ... from residents and were provided with some concerning information regarding the business owner." It linked to a news segment about the Morgans' involvement at Heights Crematory.
Obitley covered the discovery and its history on Aug. 25 in "56 BODIES, AGAIN: Same Owners, a New Facility, and the Funeral Home No Illinois Agency Was Watching" (/stories/south-chicago-chapel-56-bodies). Authorities found 56 decomposing bodies at the chapel on Aug. 6, 2026, one day after IDFPR suspended Johanna Morgan's funeral director and embalmer license. That article traced the Morgans' Heights Crematory history and the state's complaint-only enforcement approach.
The BACP spokesperson said the department checked whether the funeral home held a city business license and reported back to Chico's office that it did not, because a license would only be required if the business was selling retail goods such as caskets and flowers. The department oversees more than 53,000 active business licenses in Chicago, according to the city's open data portal.
The city's complaint file on the chapel goes back further than last September. According to city data, the first waste-related 311 complaint against South Chicago Chapel was filed in January 2024, alleging that food trays, old chairs, furniture, and open bags of piled garbage dumped behind the funeral home were attracting rats.
IDFPR employs four investigators, including a chief who oversees the work, to investigate complaints against funeral home directors and other professions. The agency plans to hire one additional investigator this fiscal year. Illinois is one of only four states that conducts no regular inspections of licensed funeral homes or crematories, according to a recent review by the Chicago Sun-Times, while a majority of states inspect annually or biannually, sometimes unannounced.
A Cook County spokesperson said nine of the 56 bodies remained unidentified as of Friday afternoon, and that identification efforts rely on records for medical device implants and dental work. The earliest date of death the office could trace was April 19, 2026. The Morgans have not been charged criminally. An Illinois State Police spokesperson said an investigation of the conduct at Heights Crematory is ongoing, after Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke initially declined to bring charges in that case. Chicago Police said it is conducting an independent investigation into the Morgans' handling of bodies at South Chicago Chapel.
The final 311 complaint on file was logged at 2:39 p.m. on Aug. 6, 2026. It reported that police "found ... bodies decaying inside of a closed funeral home."
*Sources: Capitol News Illinois/Illinois Answers Project reporting Aug. 27, 2026 (by Casey Toner and Maggie Dougherty); WTTW republish Aug. 27, 2026; City of Chicago 311 service request SR25-01709020; Chicago Data Portal Business Licenses dataset; prior Obitley reporting where reused.*
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