Preckwinkle making changes in troubled morgue

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle plans to announce an overhaul of the medical examiner's office in the wake of problems at the county morgue.

Preckwinkle's office says she'll announce changes in personnel, policy and procedure at the medical examiner's office on Tuesday.

Cook County Medical Examiner Nancy Jones has been criticized for a backup of bodies in the morgue cooler. Earlier this year, Preckwinkle's aides found 363 bodies stored in a cooler designed to hold 300.

Jones blamed a confluence of circumstances for the overcrowding, including a spike in deaths during the year-end holidays, delayed pickups by funeral homes and a delay in receiving coffins to hold the remains of the indigent. She also attributed delayed burials to poor weather.