Illinois Comptroller seeks to shut down crematory accused of improperly handling bodies
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza announced Monday that her office is seeking to close down a Chicago Heights, Illinois crematory accused of mishandling the remains of deceased people.
Mendoza's office has suspended Heights Crematory and has also filed a complaint to revoke the license permanently. This follows a CBS News Chicago investigation on the practices at the crematory.
The State of Illinois has never made a move like this before. But when officials saw the photos of conditions at the crematory, they said they had to take action.
"I wouldn't trust these people, literally, with my pet," said Mendoza. "Those bodies in the photos or videos that you've shown show people just in plastic bags, maybe in sheets, some bodies on top of other bodies. In the most recent investigation, all of those are unacceptable."
Mendoza said she was personally appalled.
"When I saw these pictures, I felt that our dog got a more dignified treatment in death than these people did?" Mendoza said. "These are people. They're people's loved ones, family members. And to see anyone treated in that disrespectful, undignified manner in death was disgusting to me."
She said shutting down the crematory for good is something that needs to happen.
"What I do have control over is shutting them down so that no family ever again has to wonder if this is a crematory that can be trusted," Mendoza said. "Let me tell you — they cannot be trusted, and that's why we're moving to shut them down permanently."
As reported earlier this month, the CBS News Chicago Investigators obtained records showing Heights Crematory had been repeatedly warned by the state for their handling of bodies waiting to be cremated. Those violations came long before the CBS News Chicago Investigators obtained photos from a whistleblower that were taken inside a trailer where bodies were being stored.
"It's disgusting, sick," Mendoza said. "I mean, really, you feel sick."
The trailer is located on the property belonging to Heights, and the photos show deceased people partially wrapped in sheets or clear plastic bags, with their faces and body parts sticking out. Some of the photos showed bugs.
When CBS News Chicago tried talking to Heights Crematory operator Clark Morgan about photos of bodies being stored in this trailer on his property, he refused to comment.
"Good God, I wish I had like five minutes to myself with this guy in a room," said Mendoza.
CBS News Chicago later learned Illinois state regulators have warned Heights repeatedly about violations. In July of last year, the crematory was cited after the state found a "cadaver in a broken refrigerator" and "six to seven bodies waiting to be cremated on main floor," saying, "This is a violation."
Morgan was then warned again in October. State regulators wrote "conditions there were unacceptable." But records show the state was willing to give them "one more chance to improve things before we take legal action against the crematory license."
A document goes on to say the facility and trailers needed to be cleaned, and bodies needed to be put in the appropriate containers.
After that "one more chance to improve," Heights Crematory got hit again. Two months later in December came another citation for a cremation container violation, and the crematory was given 30 more days to fix the problem.
But just two months after that in February, a tipster provided CBS News Chicago with the photos taken in the trailer. That tipster was Christopher Iacovetti, who called it all "a very sad way to see the final days of where your loved one goes."
Among the 19 bodies found in a dirty trailer with a broken refrigeration unit was that of a man named Jasper Williams who had died at the age of 74. His body had been at the business for a year.
"I'll tell you, from looking at him, the level of decomposition of him, when I saw him, I knew he was there for a long time," Iacovetti said.
How does a body go unnoticed for a year?
"Well, they hid the body for a year," Mendoza said. "I mean, that's how it goes unnoticed."
The repeated violations incurred by Heights Crematory says something about the system, Mendoza said.
"It says that it needs to be changed, right?" she said. "So this is why I'm saying that state law is set up in a way to allow them to continue to operate."
Mendoza said during surprise inspections, workers concealed the bodies that were in the trailer. She says her office found 100 bodies at the facility — most lacking the proper paperwork to be cremated.
They also found ashes of over 300 people — one dating back to 2013.
"It's disgusting," said Stacy Morrow Graves. "It just makes you sick to the core."
Some of the deceased, like Graves' father, Merrit, were shipped to Heights Crematory from another business, Crown Cremations in Indiana. But most were from the Chicago area, and most were African American.
"It's disgusting to me that this primarily affected African American families," said Mendoza.
The Comptroller's office said its staff have been at the crematory constantly since Feb. 18. Upon arriving, the Comptroller's office said it immediately secured an agreement with the crematory to stop accepting new cases, and began working with the crematory to ensure it was properly handling paperwork and using best practices.
That number of bodies waiting to be cremated is now down to 10, and the remaining 10 are being transferred to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office, the Comptroller's office said.
The Comptroller's office investigators also confronted crematory staff about evidence of the refrigerated trailer. Crematory management admitted there was an additional trailer it had concealed containing the 19 bodies from Crown Cremations, and agreed to quit accepting bodies from that source, Mendoza's office said.
The Comptroller's office said it also had to track down the paperwork for hundreds of boxes of unclaimed cremated remains. Crematories are supposed to obtain signed death certificates within seven days in Illinois, but there were numerous bodies lacking proper paperwork, and cremations were delayed for weeks or months.
Those remains are also going to the Medical Examiner's office.
"State law is designed to give crematories that chance to fix documented issues. Closing a crematory business is a serious step our office does not take lightly and is something the office has never done before," Mendoza's office said in a news release. "But when our office saw the images of bodies with limbs and faces exposed stacked on top of each other in coolers, some of them operational, some of them not, it became clear the owners of Heights simply are not up to the task of being entrusted with the remains of our loved ones."
Heights has 20 days to respond to the complaint. Meantime they will remain shut down.
When CBS News Chicago called Heights operator Morgan on Monday for comment, he hung up.
