The first sign that Tyler Chase got that he might be dead came at a convenience store. He had food stamps, but his benefit card didn’t work. The next sign was when he contacted Oregon state officials, who told him that a death certificate had been filed in his name. Then, weeks later, came the most disturbing development: An urn of ashes had been sent to his family, and it was sitting in his cousin’s closet. Mr. Chase’s life coursed through years of drug use, homelessness, severed family ties and a bureaucracy that documented his death without his fingerprints or any immediate family present when the body believed to be his was cremated.

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Persons: Tyler Chase Locations: Oregon