I think that the general forensic science trope in movies is that they investigate each case as if the victim was the President of the United States. NCIS is a classic example of this. The reality is that the forensic labs, at least in this area, are so backed up that the science is minimal and the results can take many weeks whereas Kasie, or her predecessor Abby, had an ocean full of high tech scientific results within a day.
I had an assumption that, if they have to identify the body from dental records, that there isn’t a lot of body left (like say WTC remains, or a plane crash, or fire). My default was that the teeth weren’t in much better shape, though I was told that isn’t necessarily so, especially in a fire.
Also, sometimes you’re just identifying skeletons.
Dorothy L. Sayers used this scenario in a Lord Peter Wimsey short story called “In the Teeth of the Evidence.” The short story collection that includes the story was first published in 1939, so it’s safe to say that the story itself was first published earlier.
Its also presumably become much less necessary nowadays, seeing as you can now sequence a spectacularly small piece of DNA (which can be used to identify someone from their relatives, even if there is no DNA to compare against from the person themselves). So the cases where there is no DNA evidence to identify someone but there is dental evidence (both intact teeth and records to compare against) are rare
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A couple of years ago, my dentist switched to a computerized x-ray system. The files are all on computer, now.
In the one switch I remember on TV, all the switcher had to do was be alone for half a minute next to the file cabinet. She was someone who used to work there and was familiar with the filing system. She had a prepared card to switch in.
Not sure how much more difficult a computer system would make it.
Teeth are shaped differently. While your lower right first molar and mine are similar they are not the same. Root lengths and shapes differ greatly. The shape and thickness of the jaws differ. Lots of things like this.
Yeah. My last dentist looked into my mouth for the first time and said “you grind your teeth, don’t you?” Among other things, it flattens the tops of the molars.
Teeth differ like faces differ. Most of us have a nose that’s roughly in the center. And even if neither of us has a nose piercing, they look different.
But teeth hold up better than faces when bodies start to rot, or if they are crushed or burned or…
Criminals in real life are too lazy and stupid to pull off a body substitution while evading dental comparison, much less succeeding in altering/copying dental work.
This con man was slightly cleverer than most, but not clever enough.
Came in here to mention this, but should have known that some other Doper would be familiar with the story. Yes, IIRC the murderer, a dentist, waited to stage his “suicide” until he encountered an out-of-town patient who had a dental history reasonably similar to his own, plus a sufficient resemblance in basic bodily appearance and a convenient absence of acquaintances or connections in the area. Then the dentist sedated the patient, did some quick-n-dirty modifications to superficially match his own dental records, burned the patient’s body in his own car to masquerade as his own corpse, and took off for parts unknown under the patient’s name. Wimsey spotted some circumstantial clue and insisted that the local forensic dentist investigate the corpse’s teeth more carefully, thus uncovering the slapdash nature of the “dental work”.
I think the idea is that if you already have a preconceived idea as to who this horrifically unrecognizable cadaver is, you just check the teeth against that person’s dental records to confirm the identification. Nobody really wants to spend any longer than they have to examining a horrifically unrecognizable cadaver, and a superficial dental resemblance is probably considered good enough for confirmation.
We had one missing person case that turned into a murder. They found skeletal remains years later in a different state. Eventually there was a DNA match in the missing person database. They didnt consider it a positive ID until dental records were matched with the remains.