# Let's do this criminal thing "out in the desert"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [March 30, 2021, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043 "2021-03-30T19:59:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2021, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/61 "2021-03-31T22:03:04Z")
**CH** , you don’t know squat about the Mojave. I’ve lived in or near that desert for better than 55 years, and I know hundreds of places only accessible by 4-wheel drive vehicles where you could dump a body and it would never be found. Most are within an hour or two from here. Hell, I know hundreds you can get to with just a plain old pickup. The Mojave is anything but flat, especially the Lower Mojave. Nobody looks twice at circling scavengers and nobody is going to report a truck going anywhere. The land is almost entirely Federal, and any cattle trying to graze on it are going to find hard going real quick. Just don’t try to drive onto a wilderness area and come to the attention of the rangers.
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### Author:  [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2021, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/62 "2021-03-31T22:23:31Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> Cremating a body to ash requires intense heat—far more than you could generate with a normal bonfire or high temperature kiln—
Or a good source of fuel, as explained by Cecil in his column on [spontaneous human combustion](https://www.straightdope.com/21341364/do-people-really-die-from-spontaneous-human-combustion). Slow burning for extended lengths of time, even at low temperatures, appears to be highly effective. Of course, that’s keeping a fire going that long isn’t necessarily going to be easy out in the desert. You might be better off leaving the body in an overstuffed chair and starting a slow fire with no accelerants.
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### Author:  [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2021, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/63 "2021-03-31T22:26:29Z")
> [@Crankyhillbilly](#):
>
> Yellowstone National Park has lots of hot springs and pools. They would basically boil the body. I think they may be acidic as well.
Yeah, [that’s happened](https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/06/09/authorities-end-search-for-man-who-fell-into-hot-spring-at-yellowstone-national-park/).
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2021, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/64 "2021-03-31T22:51:10Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#):
>
> Yeah. If only the poster had indicated they were talking about pools of acid.
Yellowstone is a National Park, devoted to a reasonable compromise between accessibility and preservation. There is one place to stay inside the park that is not a campground. It does not feature a swimming pool. As far as I can tell. You can swim in the lake or one of the creeks, but the only actually pools in Yellowstone, just look at them but do not touch, because they are hot and dangerous.
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### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2021, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/65 "2021-03-31T22:55:28Z")
> [@Crankyhillbilly](#):
>
> I don’t think i’m that lucky so I haven’t tried it. Good to have threads like this though just in case.
All I’ve got buried up in my woodlot are dogs and cats (dead of natural causes.)
Honest. You can trust me.
> [@silenus](#):
>
> I know hundreds of places only accessible by 4-wheel drive vehicles where you could dump a body and it would never be found.
But if you know those places – doesn’t that mean that you go there? And if you can, then can’t others?
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2021, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/66 "2021-03-31T23:08:15Z")
“Can they?” Sure.
“Are they likely to?” Not bloody likely.
The desert is BIG. Anecdotal “evidence”: We camp on Thanksgiving and have been at our present campsite for about 25 years. It is within sight of a main road (The Main Road) and within a couple of miles of an interstate. There is a regularly patrolled gasline road about a mile away. I could leave valuable items in plain sight at the campground (and have) and would find them where I left them a year later. Child’s play to move a hundred yards farther in, behind another hill to get rid of a body.
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### Author:  [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/67 "2021-04-01T00:14:08Z")
> [@eschereal](#):
>
> Yellowstone is a National Park, devoted to a reasonable compromise between accessibility and preservation. There is one place to stay inside the park that is not a campground. It does not feature a swimming pool. As far as I can tell. You can swim in the lake or one of the creeks, but the only actually pools in Yellowstone, just look at them but do not touch, because they are hot and dangerous.
Slight nitpick: there are actually nine non-campground lodging facilities inside Yellowstone, including full-service hotels and cabin complexes. Yellowstone is so freaking huge that on our last trip instead of staying at one place for the whole week, we split time between between Lake Yellowstone Hotel, Old Faithful Snow Lodge, and Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel. We had stayed at Old Faithful Inn on a previous trip. All are full-service hotels.
As to swimming, there are designated swimming areas on the Firehole River and the Boiling River. I recall a story in the “Death at Yellowstone” book about a number of people who were killed while inner tubing along a river and an previously unknown (and hidden) geyser erupted and unleashed tons of boiling water into the river. I’d stick to the approved swimming areas…
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/68 "2021-04-01T00:36:27Z")
Lived in Vegas for ~10 years and Phoenix for ~1.
Lots of desert that’s nearby and readily accessible yet untouched. Easy to dump bodies & let nature take care of 'em. Folks from back East or countries other than Australia really just don’t understand how much empty space there is even close to major metro areas. Just stay out of the areas with military or Federal wilderness police presence and you’ll be fine.
Also, better to dump than to bury; bury just slows down the solar-assisted decomposition.
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### Author:  [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/69 "2021-04-01T00:46:54Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#):
>
> A common mistake made by rookie murderers in West Virginia is to plan on digging a hole to bury a fresh corpse, only to find the soil too rocky (and in winter, too frozen). The murderers of Skylar Neese encountered this in 2012, as (apparently) did the perpetrator of the 1970 “Coed murders”. In both cases, the bodies were hastily covered with branches and leaves.
Indeed. I know both of these cases and several others. The issue is that these murderers buried their bodies a short distance from the roadway where people would come upon it in due course (hunters, farmers checking their property, carnivores dragging the body somewhere, etc.). There are some pretty remote areas in this state that I dare say when a person gets there, he or she may be the first descendant of any non-indigenous person to stand in that spot. But that requires a lot of driving (from four lane to two lane to unmarked paved to gravel to dirt), and walking, and climbing, so you had better be in good shape. And driving means that you leave your tagged or VIN identified vehicle abandoned for a while so that the next guy to come along, not for crime fighting, but out of kindness, calls the police.
The reason for the OP is that the movies and shows make it look like you go out on the two lane highway for a few miles, hang a left on the dirt road, and in a short time, you are in a lawless no mans land where anything goes. Instead of dragging a body up hills and up and down ravines, my fat ass merely drops it from the tailgate.
\*As an aside, I’m a bit concerned (tongue in cheek) with the level of thought my fellow posters have put into hiding bodies. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/70 "2021-04-01T00:50:42Z")
> [@Crankyhillbilly](#):
>
> Ted Bundy just dumped his bodies for the wildlife to dispose of and it worked for him so maybe it is the best way.
You know one thing I never met in three decades of working in prisons?
A successful criminal.
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### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/71 "2021-04-01T01:02:56Z")
> [@silenus](#):
>
> I could leave valuable items in plain sight at the campground (and have) and would find them where I left them a year later.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that nobody saw them. That only means that nobody who was dishonest in that particular fashion saw them.
There are significant numbers of people who won’t steal your tent but who will report a dead body.
– I’m not saying nobody ever gets away with dumping bodies; that would be absurd. I’m saying nobody can be sure they can get away with dumping any specific body.
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### Author:  [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/72 "2021-04-01T01:05:42Z")
Well yeah, prison employees never _would_ see the successful ones, stands to reason.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/73 "2021-04-01T01:07:58Z")
Everybody in this thread is so confident that they could dump a body in the desert and never be found out. Name me even one documented case!
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/74 "2021-04-01T01:39:52Z")
The ocean can be a good way to dispose of a body (including inland areas like Chesapeake, SF Bay, areas inside the barrier islands, etc.), but remember to strip it adequately (every now and then, shoes with feet in them are found on beaches around here), weigh it down and make cuts in the abdomen and other areas that might otherwise capture bloat gasses, leading to it floating up. Sea life will make short work of most of the body and eventually finish off the bones. Night on salt water can give you really good cover – just make sure you get the body into several fathoms of water so that it is not so obvious from above.
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### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/75 "2021-04-01T01:43:26Z")
That was the main character serial killer’s method of disposal in Dexter. Until scuba divers found his dumping waters and the term “Bay Harbor Butcher”. So he started boating out even further into the ocean to dump bodies. Damn scuba divers!
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/76 "2021-04-01T02:19:27Z")
> [@eschereal](#):
>
> The ocean can be a good way to dispose of a body
Not that I’ve tried it, but I’ve contemplated. In the spirit of mystery novelists.
When I go boating in Canyon Lake, the water just before the dam is over 100 feet deep. You go out on a week night and there’e practically no one on the lake. Unless the sheriff’s department is watching you with night vision goggles, (unlikely) it would be easy to drop a properly prepped body there after dark. No one goes scuba diving there, and especially not at that depth.
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### Author:  [@Crankyhillbilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crankyhillbilly)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/77 "2021-04-01T03:16:21Z")
The posters referencing West Virginia I think have the common misconception that many people who haven"t
spent a lot of time in the great outdoors have. That is that you are a further away from civilization than you really are. As a resident of the part of WV that is generally thought of as being remote and spending as much time as I can in them I doubt that there is anywhere you are more than an hour walk from a road that has traffic on it, or More than a few minutes from an old logging road. The entire state, except for a small area at Gaudineer, was denuded in the early 20th century and most of it was planted in corn until the 1950s or so. If you spend time out in the woods and wilderness you learn that people pop up at the darnedest times. Yes you could find a spot and hide a body but you couldn’t do it with any confidence that it wouldn’t be found or that you wouldn’t be seen doing it.
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/78 "2021-04-01T03:50:02Z")
It might be interesting to build a tiny automated pontoon boat that could be programmed to take a body out past the continental shelf where the weighted body could be released into very deep water, after which the device would return to its launch point. In some places, that could be a round trip of less than a hundred miles. No one dives that deep.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/79 "2021-04-01T04:30:06Z")
ISTM the hardest part of dumping a body at sea or in the desert is loading it into your car back in civilization. And in the case of disposal at sea, transferring it later to your boat or airplane for the trip out to the water.
Bodies are heavy, awkward, and if you subdivide them to be lighter and easier to handle, they’re very, very messy.
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/80 "2021-04-01T04:32:20Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> and if you subdivide them to be lighter and easier to handle, they’re very, very messy.
it does help to drain them of their messiest fluids
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