SPRINGFIELD – State Senator Doris Turner will join families who have been impacted by the Carlinville funeral home’s insufficient handling of human remains at a press conference Thursday.

“These families have been traumatized and forced to relive the death of their loved one,” said Turner (D-Springfield). “This has become a nationwide issue – we have to ensure this doesn’t happen in Illinois again.”

Senate Bill 2643 would require the death care industry in the state as well as state regulators to implement a mandatory unique identification tagging system for all human remains. It also would establish a chain of custody system that tracks the human remains of a deceased individual whose death occurred in the state from death to final disposition, if the final disposition is in Illinois.

Turner’s measure would reestablish integrity and trust in the death care industry by putting procedures and protocols in place that aim to prevent the misidentification and misplacement of dead bodies or human remains, and conduct that results in a method of final disposition that differs from what is stipulated by the deceased individual or the deceased’s next of kin.

“When we lose a loved one, we expect a funeral home to respect their remains,” said Turner. “We are talking about a person who has family and a story of their own. It is vital that we ensure no family has to receive the dreaded call that the remains they received belong to someone else. This has become a nationwide issue that needs to be addressed.”

Turner will host a press conference on Senate Bill 2643 Thursday at 10 a.m. in the Blue Room.