Chicago funeral home showed wrong body ahead of services, family alleges

A man filed a lawsuit against Leak and Sons Funeral Home, alleging the body of his father was switched with another corpse ahead of a viewing.

The suit, filed last week in Cook County Circuit Court, alleges that on Aug. 19, 2022, employees of the Greater Grand Crossing funeral home “dressed another corpse in Phillip Williams Sr.’s, clothing and presented that other decedent’s body to the family.”

Williams Sr. was actually at another facility more than an hour away and staff “had to scramble to retrieve and prepare the corpse for the funeral the following day,” according to a statement from the plaintiff’s Chicago law firm, Morgan & Morgan.

The law firm said client Phillip Williams Jr. had been in touch with the Leak family since the incident.

“We worked to resolve the case out of court but ultimately felt that filing a lawsuit was going to be the most effective path to justice,” according to the firm.

Williams Jr. is asking for more than $50,000 in damages, according to the suit. It said he’s “suffering from anxiety, nightmares and unresolved grief.”

Spencer Leak Jr. of Leak and Sons declined to comment.

It’s not the first time a client has accused the funeral home of switching bodies. In 2017, the family of Ella Rutledge sued Leak and Sons for switching corpses and burying the body of their mother before her scheduled wake. Rutledge’s body was later exhumed and reburied.

Leak Jr. said that case was settled. Hurley McKenna & Mertz in Chicago, who represented the Rutledge family, declined to comment, citing a confidentiality agreement.

Since opening in 1959, Leak and Sons has been a community mainstay, holding funerals for thousands of Chicagoans and sometimes covering costs for families in need.

In a 2016 Sun-Times interview, owner Spencer Leak Sr. said, “It’s always difficult to sit across from a mother who has lost a child, a young man, for the most part, to street violence. I have to arrange a funeral, and at the same time, try to comfort a family in dealing with this death.”

Leak Sr., who is in his 80s, is the son of the funeral home’s founder, the late Rev. Andrew “A.R.” Leak.