Chicago Heights crematory agrees to shut down permanently after accusations of mishandling bodies
Heights Crematory in Chicago Heights has agreed to shut down permanently, the Illinois Comptroller's office announced.
Illinois State Comptroller Susanna Mendoza, who regulates crematories, spoke exclusively with CBS News Chicago in March about Heights Crematory. She has now followed through on a promise to permanently revoke the crematory's license through a consent order — but she didn't have to do it in court, because Heights owners agreed to call it quits Thursday in advance of a hearing scheduled for next week.
"The practical effect of this order is that Heights and its owners will never operate a crematorium in the state of Illinois again," Mendoza said. In a news release.
Heights Crematory had been scheduled to go before state hearing officer on Tuesday of next week to learn its fate.
Business at the crematory was halted after the CBS News Chicago Investigators back in February exposed how bodies were being mishandled there.
The State of Illinois had never made a move to shut down a crematory in such a fashion 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," Mendoza said in March. "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."
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.
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."
Meanwhile, more people are still coming forward accusing Heights of fraud. Brianna Woodward is the latest person to come forward to accuse Heights Crematory of fraud — involving the remains in these two urns of her two premature babies she lost after birth.
She said the bodies of the infants were too tiny to generate the volume of cremains she was given.
"It's very gravelly, and it looks like they went outside to that area that you built and just grabbed some rocks off the ground and threw them in a bag to me," Woodward said.
"It's really disturbing to me," the mother said. "I have no idea what [cremains] I have, to be honest. I'm scared to do anything with them memorial-wise, because I'm not sure."
Woodward said she is "furious" about what happened with her twins' ashes.
Woodward is part of an avalanche of lawsuits against Heights for mishandling bodies that have now led to the permanent revocation of the crematory's license. She does not believe she got the right remains for daughters Lily and Luna, who died last year.
"I want to know so I can just be at peace with it," Woodward said.
Another Heights client, Wren Williams, had to complain to the State of Illinois finally to get her mother Betty's urn. She was crushed when she learned it was filled someone else's remains.
"I just felt that it was complete neglect," Williams said, adding that it ultimately took two and a half years for her to secure her mother's actual remains.
CBS News Chicago has also learned of numerous such cases of loved ones whose remains were mislabeled at Heights Crematory, and some people still don't know what happened to their loved ones' bodies and have never received their ashes.
The state recovered 504 boxes of ashes from Heights Crematory that never made it to families. The boxes are now at the Cook County Medical Examiner's office, and some remain unidentified.
The only comment CBS News Chicago ever got from Heights operator Clark Morgan was to get off the property. Now, his business is shut down forever.
