California: Grief for The Coroner

Sharon Hall, 35, and her mother Helene Tilch, 59, seemed beside themselves with grief last December when they identified Jane Doe No. 70, a corpse at the Los Angeles County coroner's office, as Hall's sister. Later, authorities discovered there was no sister. Sharon Hall had used the coroner's death certificate to fake her own demise, sidetracking creditors and probation officers who were on her trail. Hall was sentenced to two years in prison for the scam; her mother got 16 months.

The L.A. coroner's office may now require relatives to identify their loved ones from a photo collection of corpses, show...