City of Chicago files lawsuit against owners of South Chicago Chapel after 56 decomposing bodies found

The City of Chicago has filed a lawsuit against the owners of the South Side funeral home where more than 50 decomposing bodies were found last month. 

The lawsuit, filed on Friday of last week, names South Chicago Chapel, along with owners Clark and Johanna Morgan.

The lawsuit lists several code violations and accuses the chapel of being unlicensed and hazardous. 

Earlier this month, authorities launched an investigation into the funeral home after 56 decomposing bodies were found piled inside a South Side funeral home. Its funeral director's license was suspended when state regulators found decomposing bodies were being kept in "deplorable conditions" that included rodent and maggot infestations.

The Cook County Medical Examiner's office identified most of the bodies. Nine of the 56 decomposing bodies remain unidentified as of Friday.

The families of the victims have also called for criminal charges to be filed.

Nearly a year before the decomposing bodies were found, sparking outrage and calls for reform, a Chicago alderperson's office complained to city officials twice within a week that residents were complaining about odors from the business and noted in the second complaint that the business owner had a history of mishandling human remains.  

Yet when a city inspector visited the business two days after the first complaint, he spent 20 minutes on the scene, took a few photos, including one of an empty gurney in the funeral home's parking lot, dismissed the complaint after he was told that the smell came from a burning garbage can outside — and gave no indication in his 67-word narrative that he tried to go inside, according to the previously unreported document, obtained by Illinois Answers Project and Capitol News Illinois.

Chicago Ald. Peter Chico (10th) told the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this month that the only complaints his office received about South Chicago Chapel prior to the recent discovery of bodies were related to alleged "gang funerals" held at the funeral home.

But new records show his office reported odor complaints and concerns from residents about the facility as early as last September.