56 bodies found improperly stored at Chicago funeral home

State regulators suspended a funeral director’s license after finding decomposing bodies at South Chicago Chapel, where investigators later counted 56 improperly stored remains. The funeral home at 2939 E. 95th St. in South Deering, on Chicago’s Far Southeast Side, was found to have more than 50 decedents in various states of decomposition after Illinois and Chicago officials notified the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Cook County medical examiner investigators and forensic pathologists went to the building on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026. Other accounts placed the bodies in the funeral home’s basement and said some were being kept in unrefrigerated areas under deplorable conditions, with rodent and maggot infestations. The number of remains was still being clarified as investigators worked through the scene, with some reports saying 56 and others saying 57.

For families, the immediate fallout was the possibility of delayed burials, uncertainty about identification and condition, and days of waiting for answers. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office said identifying the remains and notifying relatives could take days, turning the discovery into a second shock for people already dealing with loss.

Neighbors had raised their own warning signs before the official discovery. Valkiery Velez, who lives next door, said she had smelled the odor for months and added, “I live right next door... I lived there for like a year, so like I could smell it the whole year.” That complaint, paired with the condition of the remains, adds to questions about how long the problem went undetected.

The case also brought renewed scrutiny to the funeral home’s history. Illinois state officials suspended the funeral director’s license after the discovery, and the owners previously ran a crematory that had been shut down after mishandled remains. With the count still being sorted out and the remains under examination, the case now sits at the intersection of public health, licensing enforcement and the basic duty to treat the dead with dignity.