Coroners had other sources of income as well. They sold fake death certificates and thereby covered up murders, criminal abortions, and suicides. One of Wallstein’s favorite examples involved a man who had been found dead in his bed, with a bullet wound in his mouth and a revolver in his right hand. The gun contained three loaded cartridges and one exploded one. The coroner gave the cause of death as “rupture of thoracic aneurism.”
