CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) -
A major overhaul at the Cook County medical examiners office Tuesday after bodies were found backed up in the morgue.
Cook County Medical Examiner Nancy Jones retired Tuesday, after a six-month investigation.
Earlier this year, the morgue came under fire for a pile-up of more than 300 bodies found in a cooler that is designed to hold just 300.
Her retirement is just one of several changes being made at the morgue, all of it prompted by that scandal last January.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle announced several new hires and a new tracking system for bodies being kept in storage at the medical examiner's office.
Last January, somebody working at the morgue leaked pictures of corpses stacked on top of corpses in the freezer. There were also reports of unsanitary health conditions in certain areas and bodily fluids pooling up on the floor.
That prompted outrage by a number of family members and complaints that Jones wasn't doing enough to inform families on the whereabouts of bodies.
At the time, Jones blamed the problem on the state not providing sufficient funding for the burial of indigent people. Jones also said the morgue issues were caused by overcrowding, a hike in deaths and delayed pickups from funeral homes. She also blamed bad weather for delayed burials.
Preckwinkle stepped in and found Jones' excuses to be unacceptable but could not fire her because the medical examiner is not a political appointed position.
Changes have been made at the county level so a future medical examiner will serve a five-year term, not indefinitely.
Preckwinkle announced Jones' resignation, thanking her for 26 years of service to the county. Preckwinkle wouldn't comment on whether Jones was forced out.
The county will conduct a nationwide search for a new medical examiner.
The office's top administrator, Kimberly Jackson, is also out. Four employees have been fired and eight more hired.
"I believe you will see an improvement in the operations of the facility as we've done a thorough review over the last six months to try to figure out where we are," Preckwinkle said.
"Even though we had that amount of bodies, the reason we had that amount of bodies is the state stopped paying the funeral directors, so the funeral directors stopped coming to the medical examiners to pick up bodies," said Robin Kelly from the Cook County Bureau of Administration.
Kelly says they now have additional money in the budget to handle that situation.
Leslie Jackson welcomed the news. She tells Fox Chicago News her deceased mother was essentially "lost" at the morgue for 14 months.
"They told us to stop calling", Jackson says. "They said they had her fingerprints in the system. We were given the brushoff for a whole year and a half. And it hurts. It's devastating."
As of a couple weeks ago, there were 234 adult remains and 56 fetal remains in the morgue's cooler, a more manageable number.
The county will soon buy a new electronic case management system that will help keep track of bodies.
