NJ Advance Media reports that New Jersey's patchwork system of medical examiner offices is leaving families without answers or closure, sending innocent people to jail, and allowing potential murders to go insufficiently scrutinized.

The news organization analyzed more than 420,000 cases referred to medical examiner offices in New Jersey over the past two decades and found they turn away about two-thirds of the cases. That rate is 20 to 30 percent higher than states with similar systems.

Reporters Stephen Stirling and S.P. Sullivan also found that the length of the average investigation by the medical examiner has grown by 350 percent since 1996.

"This can really devastate peoples' lives," Stirling told WNYC's David Furst. "If you can imagine a loved one of yours died and they took six months to get you back a cause of death, your family is really stuck at the point of when that loved one died. It makes the grieving process difficult to push through."

The newest state medical examiner, Andrew Falzon, has won praise for trying to right the ship since he was confirmed to the post last year.

The state has hired more pathologists and support staff, improved turnaround times for autopsies, and brought in an outside monitor to study the system. Stirling and Sullivan's reporting said that many of those changes were made after NJ Advance Media began its investigation.