How would a medical examiner contact a dead guys friends or family?

Question

So, if the body came in as a John Doe (unidentified) but then the medical examiner pinned an ID on him, how would he contact that persons family? Is there some kind of system with information like that? or would he contact a hospital or something to dig up the name of the dead guy from the hospitals files and see if they had a phone number of someone that he knew.
I'm a bit uncertain and would appreciate help.

OK thank you for the answers but i would like to add something to my question.

How long would the whole process of findning the relatives of the dead person and be able to call them?
Would it be like minutes, hours, days?

Answer 1

Police would go by his last known address, check his personal belongings in his home. The medical examiner merely finds cause of death, and does a report, finding or notifying any family would be done by either the police or clerks in the morgue.

Answer 2

Sometimes a coroner can identify someone through dental records.... there is patient information there. With the persons SSN showing up on those records.. it can also lead to the county that the person was living in... there in that county the public records dept is accessed. Any relatives, birth certificates, marriages and deaths become publicly accessed. That also depends on the county and state. Some only restrict those records to family with specific amounts of information that has to be provided to get it. Depending on the investigation it could take as long as it is needed... Bodies are stored and sometimes frozen in a morgue until the identity issue is resolved... if not the county may bury the person and a John doe... or be creamated once they have taken all the information they could record from the death..You may want to call a coroner to get more info but it varies from county and state..

Answer 3

If I understand your question correctly, what would happen if the Medical Examiner was able to identify the body is provide that information to the coroner or local law enforcement.

A medical examiner provides a copy of his report which, in my state, is included with the police report.

My jurisdiction allows for the County Coroner or law enforcement to make Next of Kin notifications.

Best wishes.

Answer 4

In my jurisdiction, the sheriff is also the coroner (ie, he runs the morgue - or more properly, he has a staff that runs the morgue). There are several deputies assigned to the coronoer's division, so they handle a lot of the ID - and notifications to family (not necessarily friends,as they don't know who they are...).

California Deputy

Answer 5

Once the victim has been identified, usually the police officers or homicide detectives go to the home of the deceased family members, to notify them of the death. If they live closeby, it may take a matter of hours.

Answer 6

There are some permenant John Does that have never been identified so it could be anywhere from weeks to years if they have a record in a DNA database.

Answer 7

i dont know of absolutely everyone interior the wellness center ultimate now yet im not afraid to bypass see them, i merely dont have a automobile so transportation would be a project, i cant discover the money for to unlike being in hospitals, ive had to be there myself numerous cases clarification for surgical procedures, and it incredibly ticked me off not getting visitors by way of fact of human beings not liking hospitals, at one among them the only customer i ever had while i replaced into getting my 2 hip surgical procedures replaced into actually a therapy dogs, if it wasnt for him i wouldnt have had any visitors

Answer 8

The ME doesn't do that job; they leave it to law enforcement.