# 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:** 6
### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/101 "2021-04-01T19:39:25Z")
There’s lots and lots of places in those areas which aren’t Bakken. Eastern Montana is a good two-thirds of the state’s land area, for example. It’s gigantic.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/102 "2021-04-01T19:39:50Z")
Do people not use pigs anymore?
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/103 "2021-04-01T20:03:02Z")
And risk your organic certification?
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### Author:  [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/104 "2021-04-01T20:06:13Z")
So long as the body is organic (which it might be), then the bacon would be!
Tripler
Mmmmm, bacon.
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### Author:  [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/105 "2021-04-01T20:28:58Z")
They’d only know the pig wasn’t organic if they caught you.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/106 "2021-04-01T21:10:58Z")
> [@Tripler](#):
>
> So long as the body is organic (which it might be), then the bacon would be!
But would it be kosher?
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### Author:  [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/107 "2021-04-01T21:38:54Z")
> [@Tripler](#):
>
> So long as the body is organic (which it might be), then the bacon would be!
The body’s only going to be organic if you can document that the person only ate organic food starting with their mother in the last three months of their being gestated, and has never taken any forbidden medications.
Seems unlikely.
(Might not be anyway; human manure’s not acceptable. But I don’t believe the question’s actually addressed in the standards; I’m extrapolating from other mammals.)
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/108 "2021-04-01T21:42:20Z")
> [@UltraVires](#):
>
> \*As an aside, I’m a bit concerned (tongue in cheek) with the level of thought my fellow posters have put into hiding bodies.
Well, that is one thing about which you really don’t want to “need answer fast”.
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### Author:  [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/109 "2021-04-01T21:59:14Z")
> [@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
That’s why I think the way they dispose of bodies on _Ozark_ is brilliant. The Byrds bought a funeral home, primarily as a money laundering front, but being the owner of a funeral home comes with the side benefit of giving them access to an actual crematorium for body disposal. Although the cartel they work for was once shown using the acid method, likely as a nod to Walter White.
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/110 "2021-04-01T22:04:52Z")
> [@UltraVires](#):
>
> I’m a bit concerned (tongue in cheek) with the level of thought my fellow posters have put into hiding bodies
Are you looking over your shoulder a lot now?
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/111 "2021-04-01T22:17:54Z")
I knew a guy who had worked in the funeral industry in Melbourne, and he observed that there was a part of the industry that would line up a quick doctors certificate and cremation if that’s what the customer wanted.
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### Author:  [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/112 "2021-04-01T22:32:10Z")
You misspelled ‘quack’.
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### Author:  [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/113 "2021-04-01T22:32:24Z")
> [@Munch](#):
>
> Googling “those pools in Yellowstone” brings up enough hits for acid death pools that you likely didn’t need to openly complain about your pet peeve of obscure references. Sometimes people are going to talk about things you don’t know about. In the context of a thread about hiding or disappearing bodies, this wasn’t a real toughie.
You know what? You are right. In this case the topic was such that the context for what type of pools were referred to had been established.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/114 "2021-04-01T22:40:53Z")
> [@Melbourne](#):
>
> and he observed that there was a part of the industry that would line up a quick doctors certificate and cremation if that’s what the customer wanted.
Anywhere / anyhow / anywhat there’s a willing buyer there will quickly appear a willing seller of just the thing. Ain’t commerce grand?
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### Author:  [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/115 "2021-04-01T23:49:33Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> Another is with the increasing popularity of recreational drone flying and 4K resolution cameras, a “remote patch of ground” is becoming an increasingly scarce resource. The possibility of being incidentally surveilled by a casual hobbyist is much greater than it was twenty years ago and engaging in something like digging a grave or dragging a body is going to be an obvious giveaway that something is wrong.
Admittedly there’s **more** possibility of being observed. But you are (A) overestimating how much ground a drone can cover–
> Many [drones](https://www.dronerush.com/drone-rush-drones-best-of-the-best-10540/) offer enough speed and flight time to cover ten or more miles of ground, but can only travel less than one mile from the remote control.
> **[Best long range drones - how far can you fly?](https://www.dronerush.com/best-long-range-drones-18975/)**
>
> If you are asking about the maximum distance between the drone and remote control, not ground ground coverage, here are the best long range drones.
And (B) you are underestimating how BIG the western US is.
The county I live in is about 42 miles in the shorter of the two dimensions. And there are about 15 counties in my state alone that are bigger in square miles than my county. And my county doesn’t even make the top 100 nation-wide.
There’s a LOT of emptiness out there.
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### Author:  [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2021, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/116 "2021-04-02T00:04:43Z")
> [@Crankyhillbilly](#):
>
> 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.
I disagree. I am a (mostly) life long resident of WV, and there are some places many miles and miles back that are as remote as hell. I would agree with you on a point that people will THINK that they are far more remote than they actually are?
An out of stater may say that “Gee, we are in the middle of nowhere!!!” when it is actually a 30 minute walk to the car and one hour to a major north-south interstate. To me, that is not in the middle of nowhere, and any nefarious things you have done will certainly be found out (as the murderers mentioned above were).
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### Author:  [@Crankyhillbilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crankyhillbilly)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2021, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/117 "2021-04-02T03:12:40Z")
Where in West Virginia would you consider “remote as hell” cause I want to go there. Most consider the part I hang out in whenever possible, Mon National Forest in Randolph and Pocahontas counties the most remote part. It has forest service roads through it in several places. I would be surprised if you could get more than three or four miles from a road as the crow flies. The southern part of the state has some rough terrain but it is generally peopled. When I lived in Denver I remember talking to people who had driven through he state on the interstates and they asked me where all the people are. I just told them they in the hollers.
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### Author:  [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2021, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/118 "2021-04-02T06:05:31Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> I haven’t lived there since the mid-'80s, and I haven’t been back there since… I don’t know. 1999? 2003? Somewhere in there. Did they change the naming convention? (I know they did in the cities.) 235th Street sounds like a north-south street that should be ‘235th St W’, and east-west streets when I lived there were lettered streets. So I could see ‘on the corner of W Ave D and 235th St W’ but I’m confused by the two numbered streets.
lol i pulled some numbers outta my butt i sort of numbered from when a relative lived out in the boonies
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### Author:  [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2021, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/119 "2021-04-02T10:20:24Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#):
>
> Although the cartel they work for was once shown using the acid method, likely as a nod to Walter White.
Don’t know which cartel that was, but “The Pozole Maker” predated Breaking Bad:
> **[Mexico: Man admits dissolving 300 bodies](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna28824519)**
>
> A man accused of helping a Mexican drug kingpin dispose of hundreds of victims by dissolving their bodies in acid was arrested in the border city of Tijuana, authorities said Friday.
> [@DPRK](#):
>
> In your example, the snag does not seem to be the incineration of remains per se, but more the huge pyre burning for days. That might draw some attention.
If you’re looking for something quicker, you could just use explosives, as recommended by the USDA:
> **["Obliterating Animal Carcasses With Explosives": USDA's Step-by-Step Guide](https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/obliterating-animal-carcasses-with-explosives-usdas-step-by-step-guide)**
>
> "Obliterating Animal Carcasses With Explosives": USDA's Step-by-Step Guide
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2021, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-do-this-criminal-thing-out-in-the-desert/939043/120 "2021-04-02T11:09:40Z")
I grew up in Salt Lake City and spent a lot of time on deserts as well as the wilderness of the Uintahs. Wiki says Uintah County has 32,000 people in 4,500 square mi. Lots of service roads that are only infrequently used.
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