A new family has exclusively shared videos of their loved one's body with the CBS News Chicago Investigators, saying the mishandling and mistreatment of his remains was a missed warning sign about a South Side funeral home where decaying bodies would be found over a year later.
The body of 76-year-old Ronald Tyler was already decomposing by the time his daughter Terri found out where he was being stored.
"His body was so decayed, he didn't have eyes," said Karen Enright, the Tyler family's attorney.
The Tylers are suing Clark Morgan, his wife Johanna Morgan and Heights Crematory, the cremation business the Morgans operated in Chicago Heights, over the mishandling of their father's remains.
Ronald Tyler died in February 2025 after a battle with cancer. He had retired after a 45-year career with Nabisco, where he last worked as a supervisor. Tyler's daughter Terri contracted with Heights to cremate his remains.
"When she signed the paperwork for Heights, she had no idea they were closed down and not allowed to accept any bodies," Enright said.
Heights Crematory was under investigation at the time by the Illinois Comptroller's Office.
Heights had been, in essence, shut down by the state following a CBS News Chicago investigation that revealed how Clark Morgan was dumping bodies in trailers with no refrigeration, stacking them on top of each other with body parts exposed and left to decay.
Terri Tyler saw that investigation after she signed the cremation agreement and then went looking for her father. It took her nearly two weeks to find him.
"That's when she demanded to go and see her father's body," said Enright.
The Tylers found their father at South Chicago Chapel, operated by the Morgans.
In August 2026, investigators discovered 55 bodies in various states of decomposition inside South Chicago Chapel. The Tylers found their father's remains in a similar condition there 17 months before.
"She felt her father's body and it was warm. It was not refrigerated," said Enright. "It was wrapped in the same sheet that his daughter had wrapped him in when he died. He was in a cardboard box."
Video the family took at the funeral home show a tag on his toe misidentified him as "Robert Taylor."
The Morgans have a history of complaints, including in 2020 when Helen Mercer's family said their mother's body was not handled properly at a funeral home Clark Morgan was running in Ford Heights.
"Her eyes shouldn't be popping open," said the family on the cell phone video they recorded.
The family questioned Clark Morgan about his title. He responded that he's the owner of the funeral home and said he is the funeral director.
However, he was not a funeral director in 2020. His state funeral director and embalmer intern license had expired in 2019 and was never renewed, the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation (IDFPR) confirmed.
In fact, Morgan was fined $10,000 in April 2024 for an incident two years earlier where he used a forged license to transport bodies. His license was officially revoked that April as well.
Despite that, he was still showing that fake license to police two months later. Evergreen Park police found his minivan double parked outside his home with two bodies inside in June 2024.
Police snapped a photo of the forged ID but allow him to go. No criminal charges were filed.
The state comptroller's office regulates crematories, but not funeral homes. Those facilities fall under the oversight of IDFPR.
When we spoke with Comptroller Susana Mendoza after our 2025 investigation exposing Heights Crematory, she said, "it really shined a light on this whole entire house of horrors."
She added that what Clark Morgan has been doing for years could violate the law.
"I believe there are elements of what he did that could be charged as felony crimes," said Mendoza.
Meanwhile, families like the Tylers are suing the Morgans in civil court for breach of contract and inflicting emotional distress.
"The entire family is just a wreck over the amount of decay and the way they had to see their father in that condition. No one should ever have to go through that," said Enright.
Even worse, Enright said, is the betrayal of trust by continuing to do business with unsuspecting families.
"The one thing that you want your deceased to have is their body to be treated with dignity and respect and all of these people were not given that," she said.
IDFPR would not say whether it received a complaint about Ronald Tyler, telling us complaints are confidential until a formal case is filed and/or disciplinary action is taken.
