Ok, so I accept that dental X-rays, impressions, and dental writeups are unique enough that someone can identify a body. But there’s one little snag. When you go to the dentist, you see them store the records in a fairly endless set of files in the back office. And you might then move somewhere and not go to the dentist while you live there.
If investigators find a body, how can they then match the dental impressions or X-rays when they don’t know which dental office the victim went to? What if they just moved in and haven’t been to the dentist yet? Is there some central repository where all dentists send their films to for this purpose?
I was under the impression that they did this only to confirm an existing suspicion of who the deceased was. I imagine they ask the suspected victim’s family who their dentist is.
Short answer, yes they are for confirmation of identity when identify is suspected but the corpse is burned or rotted beyond recognition, not to identify john does random unknown corpse.
Yes DNA is better. One of the resulting changes in procedures at least in the US Army that resulted from the crash at Gander Newfoundland is that they keep a sample/record of each soldier’s dna on file for ID purposes. It took up to a year for some of the bodies to be identified from dental records in that crash as I remember it, and at that time the bodies were so badly damaged that dental records were the only way they could be identified.
DNA isn’t always available – the usual reason for dental records is when the body’s been exposed to very high heat, and generally bones are all that’s left. Marrow and even the interior of teeth carry DNA, but that much heat can make it unusable for DNA matching purposes. (Note: my knowledge of this is about ten years old, and DNA techniques are changing really fast, so this may no longer be true).
It needs to be recognized for anyone who likes to watch movies with crime solving and related stuff in it, AND who want to be rational about it, that pretty much ALL films exaggerate the details of it all. No, there is no central repository for dental records, and for that matter, not every dentist takes xrays of every patients entire mouth, or keep ALL patient records for eternity. To facilitate story telling, the writer/directors assume near perfect record keeping and retrieval.
I love this kind of story myself, but I taught myself to turn a cheerful blind eye, every time a sleuth arrives at a crime scene, finds a cigarette but in some out of the way place, and immediately bags and tags it for DNA tests. All you have to do to realize how rare or impossible such scenes actually are, is to go anywhere in your local area, find a spot where some crime COULD be committed, and then look at all the trash around you. Do you REALLY think you could pick out which of the thousands of bits of goo were from the criminal?
The Gander/Newfoundland crash changed the way the US Army kept dental records. In the immediate aftermath, the mission was to get a Panorex of every single servicemember recorded and archived in a central file. Up until then, dental X-rays were kept atevery single dental facility the GI ever visited. Very inefficient for such a mass tragedy as that plane crash.
I applaud any efforts by the military to establish a DNA archive of servicemembers. It takes an achingly long time to identify old POW/MIA remains because of the difficulty finding living family members.
The dental records didn’t remain at the various clinics where the servicemembers had even seen (self-induced head thump for that goof!) The records are HAND-CARRIED for a PCS move.
The program to take Panorex x-rays and then have them archived at a secure location was a result of this crash.
My husband was the Dental Clinic Facilitator for Ft Knox KY before he retired in 1988.
dental and medical records were still hand carried for PCS moves as late as 2002, I’d never been told why the dental x-ray was taken, but I recall the phlebotomist who drew the vials of blood for testing when I was in-processed to the Army telling me about the Gander/DNA connection. The DNA <whatever> is then kept in your medical/service record (in a thick heavy cardboard envelope about 2 1/2 or 3 inches square, says DNA sample or something similar on it) and is also hand carried from station to station.
DNA testing is way more expensive than just having a dentist compare 2 sets of dental xrays. And can be done quickly – as soon as you get the xrays to the police dentist. It can take a lot longer to get DNA testing done*.
*According to a friend at a big-city police laboratory, Those are the 2 most unrealistic things in TV cop shows (like CSI, etc.):
1) No consideration of cost. Most police labs have a very restricted budget, and so only do the minimal testing that is needed for the investigation (fewest tests, least expensive tests). They may do more testing later, when they have arrested someone and need full evidence for a court, but until them, cost is a concern.
2) No consideration of time delays. On TV shows, the tests results are available within hours. In reality, most police labs are understaffed, and there is usually a backlog. It may take only 5-10 days to run a DNA test, but it could take 6 weeks before the lab can get staarted on your DNA sample.
Thanks for this, this definitively answers the question. A certain TV show that came out recently, a character is smashing the teeth in of 2 people he murdered to prevent identification through dental records. This is in NYC.
There must be hundreds, if not thousands, of dental offices in NYC. Realistically, unless the police already have an idea of who the victims are, they aren’t going to find the one the victims went to. And if they know who they are, they can just use DNA - in this TV show, the character does nothing to destroy the DNA.
The victims happen to be ninjas who are in the country illegally, as part of vast criminal underworld, so it is doubtful they went to a dentist in NYC at all.
That reminded me of something I read about the Bali Nightclub bombing in 2002 and the amazingly high rate of misidentification of the bodies by distressed relatives who flew in after the event. A report mentions that such incidents can have misidentification of 1 in 5 bodies, which in that case translates to ~40 people.
Understandable on a number of levels - just the stress of having a relative or friend among the fatalities, and the assumption that it must be X, because he was a tall, fit man in his mid-20s, when that probably describes the majority of the people attending the nightclub where the explosion took place.
This report goes into the details of the formal Interpol-based identification process. Teeth were one independent line of evidence they used to confirm identities, which was problematic for the Indonesian fatalities who were far less likely to have dental records of any use here.
The “Scarborough rapist” in Toronto (Paul Bernardo) went on with his wife to kill and dismember two girls (plus killing her sister) while his DNA sat on a shelf for months to years waiting for the police to get around testing it from a collection of sample of likely suspects taken after a series of rapes.
Yeah, I always wondered with L&O how they got results within hours from DNA. But then, the trial happens a week or two after the crime, which is even more unrealistic. the only realistic thing seems to be where they walk into various suspects workplace and arrest them in front of everyone, no doubt getting them fired, only to let them go (no guilty) a little while later.
In US jurisidications, is a dentist under any compulsion to supply said dental records? If the cops turn up at their practice, could he tell them 'actually no, I don’t feel like helping, jog on!" Would that then presumably be followed by the coppers getting a warrant?
with a warrant there is no HIPPA issue. Without would I assume be on a case basis. Also our state board can request records for investigations without a warrant.
FWIIW every once in a while law enforcement officials will publish x-rays and dental description looking for help IDing a John/Jane Doe. For me, I look at them but unless it is something very odd, no way I’ll remember after 30 years and thousands of patients.