Mother Jailed for 16 Months in Corpse Case

A San Fernando woman who aided her daughter in taking a corpse from the Los Angeles County coroner’s office was sentenced to 16 months in prison Friday.

Helene Tilch, 58, had pleaded no contest in June to a charge of false personation. San Fernando Superior Court Judge Meredith Taylor sentenced the wheelchair-bound Tilch to the minimum prison term because “she was not a primary mover in the case,” her attorney, Michael Morse, said.

“It was all done to benefit the daughter,” Morse said. “The mother didn’t get anything out of this.”

Tilch and her daughter, Sharon Hall, 35, stole the body as part of a scheme they hoped would enable Hall to evade probation officers and creditors, Deputy Dist. Atty. Janice L. Maurizi said. The idea was for Tilch to claim that Hall had died.

Tilch had accompanied her daughter to the coroner’s office in December, where both said an unidentified corpse there was Tilch’s daughter. After obtaining the corpse, Tilch had the body cremated.

The body was actually that of an unidentified woman who had died of a drug overdose. Her body had been found Oct. 25 near Sierra Highway and San Fernando Road.

The plan, inspired by a television program, enabled Tilch to tell probation officers in Sacramento County, where Hall was convicted of welfare fraud, that her daughter had died.

A deputy probation officer in Sacramento County discovered the discrepancy after seeing the autopsy report. The report’s physical description of the dead woman did not match that of Hall.

Both Tilch and Hall, who were arrested May 3, claimed that they carried out the hoax to elude Hall’s abusive ex-husband.

Hall also pleaded no contest to a charge of false personation. She was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison.

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

Tilch is charged in an unrelated federal court case with 16 counts of mail fraud.