LA Coroner Admits to ‘Mistake' in Identification of Body in Downtown LA

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office tells NBC4 they made a rare mistake and misidentified a body discovered in downtown Los Angeles.

But a woman says if she had not brought it to the coroner’s attention, the deceased would have been cremated and the wrong family informed of his death.

Katrina Hale reached out to NBC4 from her home in North Carolina — asking for help. A coroner’s investigator called her and told her the body, found without identification, was her stepson.  

The shock of that loss would be upended when the phone rang again.

“I get a phone call, and it’s my stepson,” Hale said. 

Hale thought it was impossible. Reginald Jabbar Harris, nicknamed JJ, is dead, she was told. The LA county coroner’s office told her he was found on a bench at Seventh and Spring in downtown Los Angeles.

She immediately called the investigator who first informed her.

“There has to be some kind of mistake, that can’t be him, he just called me. He says, 'No, ma’am, he's been positively identified through the department of justice,’” Hale said. 

NBC4 asked what that meant, and a statement reads:

“The Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner (DMEC) works to identify and notify the family of the deceased in a timely manner utilizing proven scientific methods which are industry standards. The use of automated fingerprint searches of local, state, and federal databases is the standard for identification and is used successfully daily throughout the United States including thousands of cases annually at the DMEC. In 2022, the DMEC submitted 8,443 fingerprints for automated identification resulting in 8,094 positive identifications. Some cases may not be positively identified through the automated fingerprint process for different reasons, including circumstances where the person does not have any fingerprints on file, or the condition of the body prevents a quality fingerprint from being obtained using this method.”

“The person that you said was my stepson is in the process of being cremated,” Hale said. 

But before that could happen, and despite the documents she received, her phone rang again. 

“‘I am so sorry, we made a mistake, it is not your stepson,’” Hale said.

If three fingerprint databases came up with Reginald Jabbar Harris, what was the mistake? The coroner’s office explains: “The FBI fingerprint return identified the person as Reginald Dwayne Harris with an alternate identification of Reginald Jabbar Harris.”

“There are alot of people in prison for being wrongly identified by the department of justice,” Hale said.

As far as her stepson, she assumes it was JJ's voice when he called on the phone, and she hasn’t heard from him since.

She asked the coroner’s office to head to JJ’s address.

“If they would kindly take a picture standing next to him so I have proof of life that's him. Until I actually see him I don't know what to believe,” Hale said. 

The LA County coroner’s office tells NBC4 they cannot comply with that request.

In a statement, the office offered apologies to both families affected and add: “While extremely rare, misidentifications can happen, the DMEC understands the pain this potentially can cause. The DMEC sincerely apologizes to the families who have been affected by a recent misidentification caused by the error. The DMEC has already taken steps to promptly correct the misidentification and, while no system guarantees to be error-free, we are reviewing our processes to make sure we’re doing everything we can to prevent this from happening in the future. That includes reviewing our automated fingerprint comparison process to ensure proper and timely identification of the deceased in our care.”