After downstate funeral home misidentified remains, legislators pass measure calling for stricter regulation

SPRINGFIELD — Without any opposition, the Illinois Senate on Tuesday passed a measure that would tighten identification standards for human remains that are being handled by funeral homes and enhance punishment for businesses that break the law.

The legislation comes after a funeral home in central Illinois last year was found to have given dozens of families the wrong remains. The owner of Heinz Funeral Home in Carlinville had his license revoked by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation after the discovery for “professional incompetence,” among other things.

The measure passed in the Senate Tuesday by a 55-0 vote would tighten funeral home regulations designed to ensure the human remains in their possession are identified properly. The bill now moves to the House for consideration.

State Sen. Doris Turner, the main Senate sponsor of the legislation, said the measure would require the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation to inspect a funeral home within 10 days of it receiving a complaint over the misidentification or mishandling of human remains. The bill also requires a crematorium to maintain “chain of custody records,” an identification system ensuring that a death care provider can identify human remains in its possession throughout all phases of the cremation process.

“When our loved ones pass away, we make arrangements while dealing with our grief. We find comfort in knowing that we are executing our loved ones’ wishes,” Turner, a Democrat from Springfield, said on the Senate floor before the vote. “When a coroner calls you months after your loved one’s funeral saying ‘I have your mom’s cremated remains’ and you think to yourself ‘my mom wasn’t cremated, we buried her last April,’ then the coroner tells you that the woman you buried wasn’t your mother, it re-traumatizes and opens new wounds of grief for families.”

The legislation would make it a Class 4 felony,  punishable by up to three years in prison, for funeral service providers to intentionally mishandle certain documents related to someone’s death.