What would the young woman’s body actually be like after being dead a week? If she died of massive head injuries from the motorcycle accident, would there have been a closed casket funeral? And if so, would they embalm if there wont be a viewing?
Is it a myth that they sew up all orifices to prevent leakage?
Did the perps in this story ever give any info on what they thought they would find when they opened the casket?
Is there some other source that suggests they were digging up the body for sex? The article you link to doesn’t say anything about motives and the police are keeping that confidential.
With something like this, I’d have to think the guys were looking for jewelry rather than sex, but that’s pure speculation on my part.
This happened four years ago (I read the title and thought “Please let it be about the old case… and not a new one”). dracoi, there are other articles that are more detailed about the motives of the gravediggers… sex with the corpse was, apparently, the goal.
I seem to remember reading about this story first on the Dope. If you can dredge up the original thread, you might find some speculation/information there.
Thanks for the link. I only got about halfway through the thread, which pretty much consisted of a lot of zombie jokes and hilarious one-liners. Not sure if there was any actual discussion of the crime.
Cecil’s column was good but doesn’t answer the particular questions I asked above.
Sorry if this is a gruesome thread, but I really am wondering about what was going on in the kids’ heads and what would have happened if they’d gotten the casket open.
If the body in question were embalmed, then any bodily fluids would have been drained and replaced by formaldehyde. Most bodies are placed in sealed coffins, close to airtight conditions, and buried under a concrete vault. Under those conditions, the body will be surprisingly similar to the day it was buried. I’ve read an account by the man who founded the University of Tennessee “Body Farm” that when he opened a thirty year old casket, the body was completely intact and recognizable to his children, with the exception of a little mold growing on it.
However, if the body was embalmed without formaldehyde, while the bodily fluids may be drained, the orifices will be filled with an absorbing material, like cotton, to keep any other fluids from draining. From there, the body will decompose, but that depends on the conditions of its burial.
Cold environment - the body will be fairly well preserved, possibly frozen.
Dry environment - the body will begin to mummify.
Warm, wet environment - at one week, if the coffin is not sealed, there will be significant insect activity - beetles as opposed to flies - and a great deal of microbial decomp, especially from the bacteria inside the gut, as it no longer has the food the person ate. The body becomes the food for the bacteria. The population grows exponentially, the gases the bacteria produce cause bloating and usually some form of tissue rupture. If the coffin is sealed, you won’t have insect activity, and aerobic bacteria will die off for lack of oxygen. Instead, decomp will be ruled by anaerobic bacterial action, and the body will be on its way to liquefaction.