locke was under alias and literally had no one looking for him... so let's say a week passed between the hanging and the hospital visit... it could have been a couple/three weeks for someone to even find locke's body hanging
I don't think coffin-Locke would look as fresh as he did if he had been dead a couple of weeks.
Though I did notice that dead Locke apparently grows stubble? lol... and I don't know if the newspaper clipping is considered canon, but if it is, it said that someone heard a noise and came to check, and he was dead. Of course, it also said a lot of other things that we know now are false, but it was right that he was hanged.
