Identify the person.
Every death the office touches begins with one question the law puts first: who is this person? Washington charges the Coroner with answering it — "who the person was, and when, where, and by what means he or she came to his or her death." RCW 36.24.040. No one becomes a case number. Everyone gets their name back.
Notify the family, and keep them informed.
A name is not a file. It is somebody's son, mother, neighbor. The Coroner's office is the bridge to the family, charged with safeguarding the personal effects found with the deceased and accounting for them to the next of kin. RCW 36.24.130. The work does not end at notification. Families deserve to be kept in the loop, in plain language, through every step.
Investigate sudden or untimely death, and certify the cause.
When a death is sudden, violent, or simply unexplained, the Coroner has jurisdiction to investigate. RCW 68.50.010. The office may call a physician to examine the body and give a professional opinion on the cause, RCW 36.24.060, and where the circumstances warrant, may convene an inquest to hear the evidence. RCW 36.24.020. That work ends in a record that follows a family for generations: the death certificate, filed under Washington's vital statistics law, Chapter 70.58A RCW. Getting it right is not paperwork. It is the truth, written down.
A check the public rarely sees.
The Coroner is the one elected officer the law empowers to step into the Sheriff's shoes. When the Sheriff is "interested or otherwise incapacitated from serving," the Coroner "shall perform the duties of the sheriff … and shall possess the powers and perform all the duties of sheriff." RCW 36.24.010. In plain terms, when the county's top law officer cannot act, or should not, the Coroner can. It is a quiet but real safeguard: no office in the county is so high that it sits beyond accountability.
That is the office. Care for the dead. Honesty with the living. And a steady hand held in reserve for the day the public needs one.