In these days of dental records, fingerprints and DNA matching is it still common for someone to have to identify a body following a murderous crime or fatal accident? On TV the grieving widow is often asked to id the body even though everyone knows the victim is her husband, including the police.
So how does this work IRL? Let’s say I’m married and my wife is involved in a fatal automobile accident. Her id is with her and the car she was driving is registered to her. Would I or some other relative be asked to come in and id her body even though there is no reason to believe it’s not her?
In PA, in my experience only, the cops go a long way to save the family the duty of saying “that’s him/her”. After his suicide, my BiL was “positively identified” by the police using only a photo ID - the first any of us had to see him was at the first viewing. I know of other cases where the police did similar things; using photos and “making the ID” from that. Other places and experiences could differ.
I ID’d my brother-in-law’s body after he was hit by a car. He had his wallet on him and we gave the police a description, his car was broken down near the scene and we all knew it was him, but they still needed a positive ID. This was Georgia, 1987.
Of course you would. What if your wife was fleeing for some unknown reason and faked the car accident with someone else’s body that was similar to hers. The police would want to rule that possibility out by having you ID the body.
We will do whatever is necessary to be sure that the body is identified. A neighboring police department had a dead body that everyone “knew” was a certain transient. After the body was buried, the transient showed up back in town, having apparently left for a few days.
They had to exhume the body to take fingerprints, so they could identify who it really was.
Imho, it saves the state a few bucks to have you come down instead of running a fingerprint check. In my state now, fingerprints are mandatory for driver’s licenses, school teachers (including substitutes and adult ed teachers) and many types of vendor’s licenses.
Comparing dental records, fingerprints, and especially DNA is way more expensive than having a neighbor or relative come in and identify the body. And most jurisdictions have plenty of financial restrictions these days without wasting money on something like this.