California: Grief for The Coroner

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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 a driver's license or other identification, and be fingerprinted. The coroner would then run a computer check of the corpse's identity. These cold-eyed procedures would apply to the real relatives of Jane Doe No. 70, if they ever surface. Her ashes have been returned to the coroner's office.