# Why do murders always dig only shallow graves? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 15, 2016, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834 "2016-05-15T11:59:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/61 "2016-05-16T15:52:22Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > Without the machine to tamp the dirt down, the deeper hole will fall in further… > > think about it, it settles 10% say, thus the mound above a grave in the cemetery is about 10% of the depth… > > So if the murderer digs a grave 36 inches down, it will only settle 4 inches. > If he digs it down 72 inches down, it settles twice as much, 8 inches, and then soon the grave can be seen as a hole in the ground. I have to admit that I don’t really get this. If I dig a hole to any depth (let’s say 6 feet) and fill the hole back in with all the dirt I removed from it, I could see why it would create a mound (I’ve aerated the soil, so it’s taking up more space than before), but once that settles back over time, it should be at the same level as it was before: neither a mound nor a hole. Now, if I put something else in that hole (say, a dead gorilla), shouldn’t it actually ultimately form a mound (more material than before?) A tiny mound, given how much material is left after the gorilla decomposes, but a mound nonethless? ---
**Author:** ![Dana\_Scully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@Dana\_Scully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dana_Scully)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/62 "2016-05-16T15:59:02Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Criminals are usually dumb fucks. Sure they might have some street smarts, but the " gentleman thief" or “criminal mastermind” is mostly fiction. Agreed. I was both a juror on one trial, and a witness in the trial of my neighbor who murdered her boyfriend. I came out of both experiences with the conclusion that criminals, in general, are pretty stupid. They THINK they’re smarter than the cops but they almost always get caught. How smart is THAT? ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/63 "2016-05-16T16:03:00Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > I have to admit that I don’t really get this. If I dig a hole to any depth (let’s say 6 feet) and fill the hole back in with all the dirt I removed from it, I could see why it would create a mound (I’ve aerated the soil, so it’s taking up more space than before), but once that settles back over time, it should be at the same level as it was before: neither a mound nor a hole. Now, if I put something else in that hole (say, a dead gorilla), shouldn’t it actually ultimately form a mound (more material than before?) A tiny mound, given how much material is left after the gorilla decomposes, but a mound nonethless? If you’re digging a grave you don’t want someone to find, making an obvious mound of dirt directly above it probably isn’t a good plan. Better to spread the dirt around the area. If someone is close, they’ll notice the earth has been disturbed, but there won’t be an obvious “something is buried here” mound. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/64 "2016-05-16T16:08:34Z")
> [@Dana\_Scully](#): > > Agreed. I was both a juror on one trial, and a witness in the trial of my neighbor who murdered her boyfriend. I came out of both experiences with the conclusion that criminals, in general, are pretty stupid. They THINK they’re smarter than the cops but they almost always get caught. How smart is THAT? In all fairness, the smart ones don’t often get caught. _On average, 90,000 people are missing in the USA at any given time, according to Todd Matthews from the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, a national database for missing people._ > **[By the numbers: Missing persons in the USA](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/09/23/missing-persons-children-numbers/16110709/)** > > On average, 90,000 people are missing in the USA at any given time. I would _guess_ that a good portion of that 90k are no longer with us, and may never be found. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/65 "2016-05-16T16:09:16Z")
Thing is, if you’re smart, lazy, and sociopathic, there are plenty of easier ways to make money than crime that don’t require credentials. Sales, for example. Or, you know, just go to school and get that credential. Criminals are lazier and dumber than your average run of citizens. That’s just empirically true. Criminal masterminds are pretty few and far between. Even mafia bosses aren’t exactly geniuses. Crime is a pretty risky businesses and there are easier ways to make money. Yeah, shallow graves are for spur of the moment murders. A deep hole takes a lot of digging, how many hours do you want to put into this job? Remember that you’re a criminal because you’re dumb and lazy, and do the math. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/66 "2016-05-16T16:14:57Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > If you’re digging a grave you don’t want someone to find, making an obvious mound of dirt directly above it probably isn’t a good plan. > > Better to spread the dirt around the area. If someone is close, they’ll notice the earth has been disturbed, but there won’t be an obvious “something is buried here” mound. Ah, so the problem is people don’t put all the dirt back in to avoid the temporary mound, so they end up with a hole in the long-term. Got it. ---
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/67 "2016-05-16T19:05:37Z")
Because you have a better shot of getting away with the crime if the evidence against you is weak than if it is strong. Getting caught in the act of digging a grave or burying the body or possessing the body by any kind of witness (that you don’t also kill and likewise dispose of) is very strong evidence against you, even if nobody saw you kill the person. The amount of risk you incur is proportional to the amount of time you’re exposed to potential witnesses. So there you have your problem; it takes a lot of time and is hard to secretly dig a big excavation with nobody noticing. You’re more likely to be noticed if you spend 3 hours ditching a corpse than if you spend 30 minutes. Even if you plan and dig a deep hole ahead of time there’s a chance you’ll be noticed wandering around the forest or local area searching for a place to dig. The you’ll spend a couple hours digging the hole, and then you’ll have an open excavation waiting to be found for a few hours or days until you fill it. It’s pretty hard to know when you’ve been spotted in an rural or remote area so that adds quite a bit of risk. A murderer might think he’s be less likely to get caught if investigators found the body a few months later when he’s a long way away than if the police or another witness caught him red-handed with the body while getting rid of it. Quickly ditching the body in secret in a way that it won’t be noticed for a few days or months will give the murderer time to flee the area, dispose of the other evidence, come up with a cover story, or just plain disappear altogether. If you get caught in the act, well, you’re pretty much screwed. Every minute the murderer spends with that corpse near him he’s incurring a huge risk of getting caught. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2016, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/68 "2016-05-16T20:54:16Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > We like to think that our dearly departed are “resting in peace” inside their satin-lined mahogany coffins in the cemetery and it would break our hearts to see them picked apart by vultures. [The opposite is true in some cultures.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial) > [@Colibri](#): > > And it’s hard to properly weight a body so it or parts of it won’t surface when it bloats. Saw on a TV cop drama the other day where they fished a body out of the river that had been drilled with a bunch of holes to prevent the accumulation of buoyant gas. Is this just TV bullshit, or would it really allow a body to be held underwater with a modest amount of ballast? > [@Kayaker](#): > > The horse was easy ($200 for a backhoe, it took the guy just a bit over an hour). Next time, [choose high explosives instead.](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2012/04/20/obliterating-animal-carcasses-with-explosives-usdas-step-by-step-guide/#.VzozAU3Vzcs) ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/69 "2016-05-18T04:54:57Z")
I’ve dug a 12’ long, 6’ deep trench in Missouri, and it took me and two other guys most of day. Pretty much clay after a foot, very hard going. I was chopping up the clay with a post-digger type shovel, one other guy was scooping it up, and the third guy was moving it to the tip. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/70 "2016-05-18T14:55:29Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Do you _really_ want to spend a lot of time doing something very conspicuous in the middle of nowhere ? Any backpacker, lost kid, trekking couple or wilderness warden and the jig is up. If you dig the grave at night, the light might be seen from miles away whereas if you dig at night in pitch darkness you’ll get eaten by a grue. And then you have to dig _another_ hole. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/71 "2016-05-18T16:35:54Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > Ah, so the problem is people don’t put all the dirt back in to avoid the temporary mound, so they end up with a hole in the long-term. Got it. The other problem is that if you don’t bring a tarp and carefully keep all the dirt on it, then the dirt gets mixed into the vegetation and it may be hard to even fill the hole flush. Note that this is dog owner knowledge, not body disposer knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/72 "2016-05-18T18:21:09Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Criminals are usually dumb fucks. Sure they might have some street smarts, but the " gentleman thief" or “criminal mastermind” is mostly fiction. I thought they just called them “hedge fund managers” and “investment bankers” as cover stories 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/73 "2016-05-18T18:39:21Z")
Well, that’s my point. If you’re a sociopath genius, there are a lot of ways to make a lot of money ripping people off that don’t involve out-and-out crime. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2016, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/74 "2016-05-18T18:41:51Z")
> [@Kevbo](#): > > The other problem is that if you don’t bring a tarp Gotta use a tarp. I’ve planted dogs, cats, chickens, shrubbery, trees, deck supports, fence posts, sick ideas, etc. A tarp is a necessity if you want to do a nice job. Pouring the last bit of soil from a tarp is so much easier than trying to rake it up from the surrounding grass. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/75 "2016-05-19T02:44:49Z")
> [@Johnny2Bad](#): > > Criminals broadly speaking represent a mirror of the society they are within; in other words there about the same percentage of dumb criminals as there are dumb people in a given area. > > However there is a significant fraction of criminals who are well above average intelligence, and to a higher percentage than the general population. They become criminals because they know they are bright yet society does not grant them the superior position they feel they deserve, which causes resentment and grandiose schemes to enrich themselves. > > Generally they are also either unlucky, debilitatingly poor (and thus either are less able to take advantage of higher education opportunities, or simply live somewhere where good job opportunities are scarce) or just plain lazy, but those are dangerous combinations with IQ’s of 120 and higher. > > It’s also reasonably common that they also feel they won’t get caught. Some simply choose a “life of crime” because they feel they can do well at it. > > Then they get caught. It does not necessarily follow that being smarter than those pursuing you means you always win. I would go further and say that there is a built-in asymmetry that favours the police over even the most intelligent of criminals. That asymmetry is that the criminal has to operate in real time, with imperfect knowledge of everything that is going on around him and has to make decisions about what to do with no reliable crystal ball about whether those decisions will be good or bad. Making judgments about relative risks of two or more courses of action doesn’t guarantee which way the risk will actually pan out in real life. The police on the other hand do not have to operate within the same “real time” constraints. They can take all the time they need to find Old Ned who saw a mysterious Volvo drive past, get footage from an unexpected security camera, dragoon huge numbers of volunteers to search for a body, take time and expense without worrying about being seen to drag a lake, etc. The police can go down dry gullies, get some initial assessments wrong etc. The criminal can make exactly zero mistakes, and determining in advance whether something will turn out to be a mistake is not capable of being done merely by the application of intelligence, any more than intelligent people can predict the future. This doesn’t mean that all criminals get caught, its just that police have a massive built in advantage. Being intelligent as a criminal is not as big a help as you would think. In fiction, being a smart criminal usually leads to elaborate schemes with bluffs and distractions and red herrings and the other things that make TV shows interesting. In real life every one of the little elaborations in the plan is a detail that has the potential to unravel and thus is an opportunity to get caught. Thus, an intelligent criminal IRL rapidly recognises the obvious value of the Keep It Simple, Stupid principle. Which means his planning is pretty much the same plan that any ordinary criminal would come up with. The issues are nicely illustrated by **mmmiiikkkeee** ’s post below: > [@mmmiiikkkeee](#): > > Because you have a better shot of getting away with the crime if the evidence against you is weak than if it is strong. Getting caught in the act of digging a grave or burying the body or possessing the body by any kind of witness (that you don’t also kill and likewise dispose of) is very strong evidence against you, even if nobody saw you kill the person. The amount of risk you incur is proportional to the amount of time you’re exposed to potential witnesses. > > So there you have your problem; it takes a lot of time and is hard to secretly dig a big excavation with nobody noticing. You’re more likely to be noticed if you spend 3 hours ditching a corpse than if you spend 30 minutes. Even if you plan and dig a deep hole ahead of time there’s a chance you’ll be noticed wandering around the forest or local area searching for a place to dig. The you’ll spend a couple hours digging the hole, and then you’ll have an open excavation waiting to be found for a few hours or days until you fill it. It’s pretty hard to know when you’ve been spotted in an rural or remote area so that adds quite a bit of risk. > > A murderer might think he’s be less likely to get caught if investigators found the body a few months later when he’s a long way away than if the police or another witness caught him red-handed with the body while getting rid of it. Quickly ditching the body in secret in a way that it won’t be noticed for a few days or months will give the murderer time to flee the area, dispose of the other evidence, come up with a cover story, or just plain disappear altogether. If you get caught in the act, well, you’re pretty much screwed. Every minute the murderer spends with that corpse near him he’s incurring a huge risk of getting caught. Not being able to know whether you have been spotted is a significant problem, particularly in a rural area where everyone knows everyone else’s cars and has a high rate of recognition of the presence of a stranger. The decision about whether it is better to take time and dispose of the body properly vs do it quickly and avoid the risk of being associated with it is one of those decisions that must necessarily be based on imperfect information that no amount of mere intelligence can resolve with anything other than a guess. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/76 "2016-05-19T02:47:41Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > [The opposite is true in some cultures.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial) > > Saw on a TV cop drama the other day where they fished a body out of the river that had been drilled with a bunch of holes to prevent the accumulation of buoyant gas. Is this just TV bullshit, or would it really allow a body to be held underwater with a modest amount of ballast? > > Next time, [choose high explosives instead.](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2012/04/20/obliterating-animal-carcasses-with-explosives-usdas-step-by-step-guide/#.VzozAU3Vzcs) In post 48 above by **Battlepope** , the link he provides mentions that the deceased had been stabbed 60 times. Even a frenzied killing is unlikely to involve that many wounds. It would not be at all surprising if the stab wounds were intended to prevent the body being found. But found it was. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/77 "2016-05-19T03:06:58Z")
> [@](#): > > I have to admit that I don’t really get this. If I dig a hole to any depth (let’s say 6 feet) and fill the hole back in with all the dirt I removed from it, I could see why it would create a mound (I’ve aerated the soil, so it’s taking up more space than before), but once that settles back over time, it should be at the same level as it was before: neither a mound nor a hole. Now, if I put something else in that hole (say, a dead gorilla), shouldn’t it actually ultimately form a mound (more material than before?) A tiny mound, given how much material is left after the gorilla decomposes, but a mound nonethless? No, it sinks because the body decomposes into a liquid and oozes away into the ground plus bugs and worms eat it and leave, taking material with it. So a significant volume leaves the area after burial. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/78 "2016-05-19T07:09:11Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > I can’t think of anywhere along the line where someone could easily toss a body into the steel. > > … and scoop the useless slag out of the steel… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/79 "2016-05-19T15:10:35Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Most bodies that are found buried in shallow graves are probably not the work of career criminals, but people who have killed on the spur of the moment and are in a hurry to dispose of the evidence. > > The Mafia or other organized criminals will either kill someone and just leave the body there, or if the body is in an inconvenient place just dump it. You actually don’t need to do much to hide a body except get it a ten-minute walk from civilization. Sometimes even less than that. In the past month two bodies have been found in woods just off Highway 13 in the suburbs of Montreal, Quebec – one a murder, the other likely a suicide. In both cases the bodies were found less than 200 metres from the road. One body had been there for more than a year. The only reason the bodies were found was because of construction. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834/80 "2016-05-19T15:45:06Z")
> [@Barbarian](#): > > In the past month two bodies have been found in woods just off Highway 13 in the suburbs of Montreal, Quebec – one a murder, the other likely a suicide. > In both cases the bodies were found less than 200 metres from the road. One body had been there for **more than a year**. > > The only reason the bodies were found was because of construction. That’s still pretty darn fast. How long is the statute of limitation on murder one in Quebec ? In France it’s something like 20 years from the victim’s death or majority (whichever is longer) so to be in the clear, the body must remain hidden for _at least_ that long. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-murders-always-dig-only-shallow-graves/754834.md?page=5)