Why does this keep happening?
Monday, Aug 10, 2026 - Posted by Rich Miller
* CBS 2…
Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza, who regulates crematories, shut that business down last year, revoking its license.
“It is really disgusting and upsetting to find out that they’re still at it, and I had said back then, these folks will figure out a way to circumvent the system,” she said. “I don’t know how there’s not like a microscope on this entity. You know, the Morgans literally run a house of horrors in their businesses.”
But when it comes to the Morgans’ funeral home, Mendoza said her hands are tied, because funeral homes are regulated by a different state agency.
“We don’t have the authority to, you know, look at what’s going on in their funeral home. That’s not something that we regulate or investigate. That is fully under the purview of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulations, and we have made it clear to them that these are terrible actors,” Mendoza said on Friday.
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation said, while they have the power to revoke funeral directors’ licenses, they do not have jurisdiction over funeral homes.
Mendoza said regulation of funeral homes and crematories should be handled by a single state agency.
* NBC 5…
In a news release sent Friday, the IDFPR said it took “swift action” after learning of the situation at the South Side funeral home, and was working with investigators “to ensure all appropriate regularly and public-safety steps are taken.”
The IDFPR handles the physical operations and professional credentials of funeral homes, Mendoza’s office said. The department also licenses and disciplines funeral directors and embalmers, and investigates operational issues like professional incompetence, vital records noncompliance, or the improper handling of human remains.
In 2024, Morgan’s husband Clark, who previously held a funeral director and embalmer intern license, had his credentials suspended.
In 2025, the Illinois Office of the Comptroller shut down the Morgan’s other business, Heights Crematory in Chicago Heights, after investigators discovered “several improperly stored bodies and hundreds of cremated remains that had never been returned to their families.”
* AP…
Capitol News Illinois reported in 2023 that state regulators allowed a Carlinville funeral director to operate for months despite a complaint filed by a local coroner who found a decomposing body in his funeral home and alleged the care of the remains was “unacceptable and criminal in nature.”
While trying to assist a local family with retrieving cremated remains in March, Morgan County Coroner Marcy Patterson found the unrefrigerated corpse in the embalming room of Heinz Funeral Home. She contacted IDFPR, the state agency that oversees funeral directors, and filed a complaint.
IDFPR took no immediate action against the funeral home director Albert August “Gus” Heinz, allowing him to continue to handle arrangements for grieving and unsuspecting families. It wasn’t until Oct. 5 — days after another local coroner went public with what he found at the funeral home — that Heinz agreed to allow [IDFPR] to revoke his funeral director license. The coroner later filed an affidavit saying Heinz might have misidentified up to 800 human remains.
- FIREDup! - Monday, Aug 10, 26 @ 9:27 am:
Between this and the ongoing licensing debacle at IDFPR, a change in leadership is desperately needed.
- TNR - Monday, Aug 10, 26 @ 9:35 am:
== The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation said, while they have the power to revoke funeral directors’ licenses, they do not have jurisdiction over funeral homes. ==
Huh? That’s like the Secretary of State saying they have the power to revoke a drivers license but don’t have any jurisdiction over who drives a car.
- Excitable Boy - Monday, Aug 10, 26 @ 9:49 am:
Aren’t there criminal statutes regarding handling corpses and fraud? Someone needs to be arrested.