CHICAGO HEIGHTS – Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza announced Monday her office has summarily suspended and filed a complaint to permanently revoke the license of Heights Crematory, Inc. (Heights) in Chicago Heights, Illinois. This is in response to violations documented by Illinois Office of Comptroller (IOC) staff including improper storage of bodies, lying to our office’s auditors, and failing to maintain records of the bodies brought in for cremation.
“I am appalled, disgusted, and deeply saddened by the disrespect Heights Crematory showed to the remains of the deceased, and we are working swiftly to strip the facility of its license,” Comptroller Mendoza said. “No family should have to wonder what happened to their loved one when they pass or learn a deceased family or friend wasn’t treated with the utmost respect and dignity they deserve.”
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Upon learning of the egregious problems at Heights Crematory on Tuesday, February 18th, the Illinois Office of Comptroller dispatched staff to the facility and has been there every day since to ensure employees follow the laws of the state of Illinois in cremating the inventory of bodies that had built up and had been improperly stored.
The IOC immediately secured an agreement from Heights management that they would stop accepting new cases. IOC staff began working with Heights to process the paperwork needed for cremation and to ensure the cremations were done according to current industry standards.
When IOC first arrived, there were approximately 100 bodies waiting to be cremated. Today, the number is down to 10. The remaining bodies are being transferred today to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, which has worked closely with us to address the problems at Heights.
A few days later our staff confronted crematory personnel with evidence of an undisclosed refrigerated trailer on the property. Heights management admitted the existence of an additional trailer they had concealed containing 19 bodies from Indiana. The owner continued accepting bodies from that same source even after she had said they would accept no more on Feb. 19.
There were also hundreds of boxes of unclaimed cremated remains our office has tried to track down paperwork for. The remaining cremated remains are also going to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
The IOC performed surprise inspections of Heights Crematory in July, October and December of last year, finding problems each time that the facility corrected. In October, Heights agreed to shut down for four days while they fixed the problems.
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.
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.
We would like to thank Chief Medical Examiner Ponni Arunkumar, M.D. and her staff for their help. We would also like to thank the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which shares responsibility for overseeing death care issues with the Comptroller’s office.
The Comptroller’s office has been on-site every day the facility has been open since Feb. 19 (the crematory is closed on Sundays) going case-by-case through all the paperwork for each body. Many of them lacked one or more of the documents necessary for cremation – a signed death certificate, a signed cremation authorization from next of kin, or a cremation permit issued from the Medical Examiner’s office or County Coroner.
Part of the problem has been funeral directors dropping off bodies not in proper containers and without all necessary documentation. But the crematory has a responsibility to demand all proper paperwork from the funeral directors and that bodies are delivered in proper containers, which Heights did not always do.
After further investigation, and noting previous complaints against the facility, Comptroller Mendoza ordered the filing of documents to revoke Heights Crematory’s crematory authority license along with summarily suspending Height’s license effective March 17, 2025.
“There is no way Heights should be allowed to continue handling the remains of the deceased,” said Comptroller Mendoza. “Families should have the peace of mind about the cremation of their loved ones.”
The IOC’s Pre-need Licensing and Certification Enforcement program (PLACE) oversees crematories, as well as funeral homes and cemeteries that sell pre-need merchandise or services.
- In 2019, our office worked with officials in Sparta to obtain the conviction of Nathan Lee, the former owner of McDaniel-Lee Funeral Home and Cremation Service for defrauding his clients. Lee pled guilty to two counts of failure to deposit funds. He was sentenced to three years in prison, fined $2,000 and ordered to pay $25,000 in restitution to victims who had not already been helped by the IOC’s Consumer Protection Fund.
- In 2020, our office helped secure charges of fraud against mortuary owner William “B.J.” Elias of Streater for stealing more than $137,000 in pre-need funeral funds from his clients. Elias died before he could stand trial on the charges.
The Heights Crematory, Inc. crematory authority license is summarily suspended, and a hearing will be held on April 11 to revoke the license.
If the public has any questions or concerns about a crematorium facility, they can contact our office’s Pre-need Licensing and Certification Enforcement (PLACE) division at 312-814-2451; our toll-free hotline: 877-203-3401 or email: PLACE@IllinoisComptroller.gov.
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