Movies, books, and real-life people demonstrate various ways of disposing of the dead. Conventionally, the dead are disposed of by burial in cemetaries and by cremation. However, when the criminal element becomes involved, destroying the corpse must be done in a way that the corpse cannot be traced to the criminal. Yet even criminals bury and cremate. Nevertheless, these methods keep open possibilities for detection and tracing the body to the criminal. Unique methods criminals use seem to be to weigh the body down in a body of water. “Sleeping with the fishes,” as it’s sometimes called. Or dissolving the body in a vat of acid.
What other methods are used that are practical and effective? Is there a reason why criminals are not wont to use more effective methods?
Many crimes are done in passion, and the perpetrator doesn’t have time to make elaborate preparations, and afterwards they just want to get away from the crime and pretend that it never happened. Only a few people are capable of thinking clearly when they have just done something horrible and know they could face life in jail or worse for it. The attitude is not usually to perpetrate a perfect murder, but to cover your actions as quickly as possible and buy some time. With enough time, people start thinking they can get away with it and the bodies eventually are found.
It’s also rather difficult to dispose of a body. For all the light-hearted talk about dissolution in a vat of acid… ask yourself: if you had a body to dispose of right now, have you a vat of acid handy?
Bodies disposed of at sea - even weighted down - are notorious for finding their way to shore. You might ask Scott Peterson for his views on the efficacy of this method of disposal.
There are many methods that might destroy a body – a fully-equipped butcher’s shop and a pack of hungry dogs, for example, could be used in tandem to eliminate your little problem. But once again - have you a fully-equipped butcher shop at hand? If you happen to be building a large building, you can pour a concrete slab over your victim. If you happen to have access to a crematorium, you can come in after hours, fire up the furnace, and reduce your victim to ash, which can then be flushed down the commode. Do you happen to work in the construction or funeral industries?
even sven is on the money in her post above: most murderers are simply making do with what they have around them, and are not rich in useful resources.
Is this the joke “Help me dispose of the bodies” thread come to life?
I ususally just bury them under the celler. It isn’t very secure, but it’ll gives the Police something to do when they catch me. If you get rid of all the bodies, how are you going to prove your score to the other inmates in the assylum?
Grab a shovel and bury the body in a graveyard, nobody is going to think of looking there, as long as you are careful replacing the sod the ground shouldn’t even look disturbed unless you examine it closely.
Around here, 90% of the bodies are left where they drop. And 1/3 of the killers are immediately apprehended, often on some other charge, like carjacking or robbery. Not a clever bunch.
This gets my award for the most creative idea. If you’ve got the balls to do so, pick a grave of someone who was just interred. If you don’t, pick one of those really old, not-used much anymore graveyards.
True. To easily dispose of a body tends to require you be able to lure the person somewhere where it will be easy. This is believed to be the case with Hoffa. If I can somehow get my intended victim to a remote spot, I could have in advance dug an open grave there, off my victim, and quickly put them in the open grave and cover it up. Absent witnesses to me doing this, the police almost surely would never find the body.
Whenever I watch “New Detectives” (it’s on TLC or Discover, I forget which) I’m always amazed at how little the lab workers need to identify a body. In one case, a guy killed his wife, rented a chipper-shredder and spewed her remains along a creek in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night. Investigating the area, they found part of one tooth and had enough to convict the guy.
A tip to those who think that burning a house will consume dead bodies: No, it doesn’t. Scorch 'em a little, yeah, but it’s still recognizably a human body.
Canada’s latest candidate for most prolific mass murderer, whose name escapes me at the moment, apparently fed his victims to the pigs on his pig farm in BC. Apparently pigs, who are omnivorous, will eat people, bones and all. I don’t know if he cut the bodies down to more manageable pieces beforehand though. The police had to recruit students from the local anthropology faculty to assist with combing through all the “little bits” for DNA analysis. :eek: All the victim’s families were ever told was that their relative’s “DNA was found on the scene”. There is a publication ban in effect on this case at the moment.
I have also read that this was a method of disposing of bodies used in Ireland, during the “troubles”
This is also why I have read that when feeding pigs, especially several large adults at once, one needs to be careful to remain standing at all times and not fall down.
Interesting thought. In cases of murder where the murderer disposes of the body with no evidence, these may just end up listed as missing person reports. Thus in cases where the corpse is made to vanish without a trace, these may not even be recognized as murders. Think in particular here of cases involving married people. If the spouse just vanishes, it could be yet another case where they used one of the 50 ways to leave their lover. And a devious spouse with murder in mind often could lure the victim to somewhere the body could be unfindably disposed of.