Scheme to Claim Body Draws Prison Sentence

A San Fernando woman was sentenced to two years in prison Thursday in a bizarre scheme--inspired by a television program--in which she persuaded the Los Angeles County coroner’s office to release a badly decomposed corpse after claiming it was that of her twin sister.

Sharon Hall, 35, told coroner’s officials that her name was Sharon Agee and that she had come to claim the body of her twin sister, whom she identified as Sharon Hall, authorities said. Her mother, 58-year-old Helene Tilch, accompanied her and corroborated the story, authorities said.

When shown the photographs of an unidentified corpse the coroner’s office had labeled “Jane Doe 70,” the two women burst into tears, Deputy Dist. Atty. Janice L. Maurizi said. The body was handed over to them, with no documentation or proof requested, a coroner’s spokesman said.

Hall later told authorities that the hoax was inspired by the plot of a TV program.

After having the body cremated at a local mortuary, Tilch called probation officers in Sacramento County, where Hall was convicted of welfare fraud in 1986, and told them that her daughter had died.

Susan Raquel, a deputy probation officer in Sacramento County, was among those Tilch called. Suspicious about the woman’s sudden death, Raquel asked to see a report of the autopsy that had been conducted on the body. The report’s physical description of the dead woman did not match that of Hall, Raquel said, so she called authorities.

The scheme was carried out last December and the women were arrested May 3. Each pleaded no contest last month to a charge of false personation. Tilch is scheduled to be sentenced in San Fernando Superior Court today.

Maurizi contends the hoax was devised to elude probation officers and creditors. But authorities said Hall told them that she concocted the scheme to get away from her abusive ex-husband. Police said she told them that she called various morgues looking for a “Jane Doe” with her physical description.

“It’s sort of a weird case,” said Fritzie Galliani, Tilch’s attorney. “They thought this was the only alternative that they had. The husband is a very big, oppressive fellow.”

But Los Angeles Police Detective Stephen Fisk said he found no proof that Hall was being hounded by an abusive ex-husband.

What police did find was an urn containing the corpse’s remains at Tilch’s San Fernando home. In searching the house, police said they discovered the cremated ashes of Jane Doe 70 in Tilch’s closet.

Maurizi said the identity of the dead woman, who died of a drug overdose, is still unknown. Her body was found Oct. 25 along the Sierra Highway near San Fernando Road. Fisk said the body was found about a mile from where Tilch and Hall had lived in the 500 block of South Harding Street.

“It was something coincidental that they knew there was a body that fit the description,” Maurizi said.

As a result of the incident, the coroner’s office has changed its policy and now requires proof of identification in claiming bodies, said Tony Hernandez, a spokesman for the office.

“Since then, we’ve tightened up some of our procedure . . . .” Hernandez said.

Hernandez said that the body had remained unidentified for about a month and half and coroner’s officials had exhausted all avenues for identifying it.

Hernandez said that to his knowledge it was the first time such a hoax had been attempted.

He did not say why coroner’s officials did not question why a woman who identified herself as Sharon Agee would have a twin sister with the same first name.

“Yeah, two daughters named Sharon,” chuckled Detective Fisk. “We kind of scratched our heads over that one.”

Still, after getting away with the body, Hall did not take great pains to continue the masquerade, authorities said.

Federal authorities said that a month after she had supposedly died, Hall showed up in Sacramento in federal court with her mother.

Tilch and Hall have a history of welfare fraud, federal authorities said.

Tilch has been charged by the U.S. attorney general’s office with 16 counts of mail fraud. Her trial is pending in U.S. District Court in Sacramento.