If you killed somebody, how would you dispose of the body without getting caught?
June 13, 2004 5:48 PM   Subscribe

Suppose you killed somebody...

How would you dispose of the body without getting caught? Would you dump it somewhere? Bury it in the backyard or basement? Dissolve it in lime? What? What would your master plan be that would allow you to get away with it?

And no, I haven't killed anybody and I'm not planning to - I was just curious.
posted by ashbury to Human Relations (74 answers total) 345 users marked this as a favorite
 
Did weston put you up to ask this? 'Cause there are some answers to your question in that MeTa thread...

Just don't put the head in an ice bucket.
posted by wendell at 5:56 PM on June 13, 2004


dissolve it in "lime"?
like a huge daiquiri with a corpse floating in it?
posted by matteo at 5:58 PM on June 13, 2004 [2 favorites]


You can get some good ideas about what to do by watching Man Bites Dog.
posted by Kwantsar at 6:07 PM on June 13, 2004


I'd probably bury them deep under my house. I know it'd tie the body to me that way, but at least I could know no one wasn't stumbling upon them.

Disguise them as a hallway lamp.
posted by holloway at 6:10 PM on June 13, 2004 [2 favorites]


I'd bury it under ashbury's house, because he just posted this thread, and he'd go down for it.

Or at least would have until I posted this comment.
posted by Vidiot at 6:20 PM on June 13, 2004 [10 favorites]


Best answer: First, be smart from the very beginning. Pulverize all teeth, burn off fingerprints, and disfigure the face. Forcing a DNA test to establish identity (if it ever comes to that) might introduce the legal/forensic hurdle that saves your ass down the line. An unidentifiable body can, in a pinch, be dressed in thrift store clothes and dropped in a bad part of town where the police are less likely to question it. I don't reommend that disposal method, I'm just saying an easily identifiable body is an even bigger threat than the opposite.

Assuming you have it inside a house where you can work on it a bit, the first thing you want to do is drain it of fluids. This will make it easier to cut up, and slow decomposition a little bit. The best way to do this quick and dirty is to perforate the body with a pointed knife, and then perform CPR on it. Cut the fronts of the thighs deep, diagonally, to slit the femoral arteries. Then pump the chest. The valves in the heart will still work when dead, and the springback of the ribcage can put apply a fair amount of suction to the artria. Do this in a tub. Plug the drain, and mingle lots of bleach with the bodily fluids before unplugging the drain to empty the tub. This should help control the stench of death, which would otherwise reek from your gutter gratings. Do everything you can to control odors. Plug in an ionizer, burn candles, leave bowls of baking soda everywhere. Ventilate the room in the middle of the night, but otherwise keep it closed. Keep the body under a plastic sheet while it's in the tub.

If you want to bury, I recommend seperating the body into several parts, and burying them seperately. For one thing, it's easier to dig a deep enough hole for a head than for an entire body. this reduces your chances of being discovered while you are actually outside and digging the grave.
That is the one thing you can't do inside the doors of your house, and represents a vulnerable moment you want to keep brief, under 2 hours. Do it between 3 and 5 am. It's also less likely for someone to call the police if their dog digs up some chunk of meat, than if they dig up an enitre body. They may assume it's an animal carcass disfigured by decomposition, and leave it alone or dispose of it. It's also more likely that the dog will consume all of it before anyone knows the difference. A whole skeleton is another story. You can cut a body into 6 pieces faster than you think. It's not much different than boning a chicken, but it takes more work, a big knife, and time. A hammer will be useful for pulverizing joints or driving the knife deep where it doesn't want to go. Anyway it's wise to crush as much of the skeleton as you can along the way. It will aid in making the body less identifiable for what it is as it decomposes.

Don't return to the same site 6 times for 6 burials.You'll attract suspicion from anyone nearby, and you'll wind up placing the body parts close enough together to be found by any serious investigation. Put them in plastic bags with lots of bleach, and store in a freezer until you have enough time to bury them all.

Depending on what tools you have available, you may find that you're get really good at deconstructing the body. You might prefer to slowly sprinkle it down a drain without leaving your house. This avoids the long-term risk of discovery associated with burial, and the overwhelming supply of bacteria in a sewer accellerates deconomposition, whil e providing a convenient cover smell.

Truly grinding down a body takes a lot more work, and you run the risk of fouling your plumbing and calling in a plumber. So don't try it unless you know how to clear bones and meat out of a drainpipe. A good food processor can be useful. But don't over-use it, or power drills or saws. They're noisy and they attract attention. And forget the kitchen sink. It's better if you actually remove one of the toilets in your house from its base, which will give you direct access to one of the largest sewer pipes that enters your house. Follow any disposals with lots of bleach and then run the water for 5 or 10 minutes on top of that. And plug that pipe when you're not using it, to prevent any sewer gasses from backing up into your house. Usually, a U-trap inside the toilet does that for you.
posted by scarabic at 6:27 PM on June 13, 2004 [1094 favorites]


Okay. Awkward.
posted by Stan Chin at 6:30 PM on June 13, 2004 [298 favorites]


i don't want to know how scarabic knows all of this.
posted by Hackworth at 6:32 PM on June 13, 2004 [14 favorites]


Scared now.
posted by nicwolff at 6:32 PM on June 13, 2004 [5 favorites]


In a followup question, how would you kill someone without getting caught? I'm just curious.
posted by smackfu at 6:34 PM on June 13, 2004 [4 favorites]


Remind me never to piss off scarabic.
posted by Vidiot at 6:36 PM on June 13, 2004 [18 favorites]


Pigs. About 16 of 'em.

Stan Chin: For reals.
posted by bitpart at 6:37 PM on June 13, 2004 [2 favorites]


heh. top of the head.
posted by scarabic at 6:47 PM on June 13, 2004 [8 favorites]


so to speak.
posted by quonsar at 6:54 PM on June 13, 2004 [3 favorites]


you guyz iz so com-pa-lacated. The acid bath or out to sea with it...remember to puncture the lungs with a shank first.

the bestis way iz the crematorium. Fast, and clean... meat sack to dust in 30 minutes or less.
posted by clavdivs at 7:03 PM on June 13, 2004 [4 favorites]


Jesus scarabic!

Anyway, here's my thought..

I live near the ocean, and was always told not to let balloons go as they'd end up in the ocen and choke fish.

See where I'm going with this?

My thinking is, all of the physical evidence? Let it go, separately, tied to balloons. The gun, clothing, etc.

They'd come down maybe in the ocean, maybe hundreds of miles away (anyone got an estimate on that?) to where they'd never be found. And if a gun or whatever was found miles away, even IF they could tell it was tied to balloons (maybe not, depending on how long it takes to be found,) they'd have literally thousands of square miles worth of crimes to consider. Not likely.

Now I'm wondering... could you do the same with body parts? The planet isn't as densely populated as it may seem. If a hand, or an arm, or a chunk of flesh came down somewhere, most likely, it'd be eaten LONG before any person found it.....
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 7:06 PM on June 13, 2004 [8 favorites]


First, be smart from the very beginning. Pulverize all teeth, burn off fingerprints, and disfigure the face--- shit!

on preview, what Scarabic said. :)
posted by dobbs at 7:08 PM on June 13, 2004 [14 favorites]


meat sack to dust in 30 minutes or less

Could there be trace DNA in the dust?

Okay. Awkward.

Perfect.
posted by anathema at 7:16 PM on June 13, 2004


Personally, I prefer

Metafilter: okay, awkward.

To answer the above how would you kill someone without getting caught, I suggest the key to that is minimal contact. If you break into a house, bust in their room, stab them fifty times through the chest, and go, you're going to leave a lot more physical evidence behind than if you send one 5.56 mm bullet into their head from the bushes outside.

Then you can do my balloon thing with the gun, I guess.

obsessed with the balloon thing

On preview: I agree with TSS. Administrator!
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 7:29 PM on June 13, 2004 [2 favorites]


In a follow-up-follow-up question, now that you know how to kill somebody and dispose of the body, WHO would you kill?
posted by signal at 7:32 PM on June 13, 2004 [2 favorites]


What tss said.

Scariest mefi response evah!

The ocean and some big weights has always struck me as the best disposal method, but only if you have a boat hidden away somewhere where you can load it without anyone seeing. And don't put anything in a styrofoam container, like that guy in Pa did.



Off to check what zip code scarabic is in
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:38 PM on June 13, 2004 [2 favorites]


DNA is a chain of organic molecules, right? I don't think ashes are identifiable. Unless you keep your victim's ashes in an urn on your mantlepiece, they shouldn't even be findable.

Oh, and JKF - don't most coastal winds blow *in* from the sea? Solar radiation strikes the dy land, warms it, hor air rises, cooler air over the sea is sucked in to replace it... Wind. Besides, how would you make sure that the parts/evidence would sink once it hit the water? If it didn't it would just wash up somewhere. Need I mention that balloons don't sink in water?
posted by scarabic at 7:38 PM on June 13, 2004


See, another good reason to own a boat!
posted by billsaysthis at 7:40 PM on June 13, 2004


Okay, wait....

What if you took a person, tied him up or whatever, and just tied a bunch of balloons, like, 300, to HIM? And sent him up up and away to watch the balloons pop, until eventually, he just plummets to the earth?

What a horrible way to die, could you imagine?

And like, you could put him on like a raft maybe, tied to balloons, so as it plummets, he falls off, and the balloons now are able to rise and keep going back up, so the cops find him hundreds of miles away, and just see cause of death as a huge fall, and think, "maybe he jumped from a plane?"

And you'd be easily alibied, cause you could make sure to be seen before and after, and of course you couldn't have had time to go so far away to kill this guy, and...

You'd be scot-free!


On preview:

don't most coastal winds blow *in* from the sea? Besides, how would you make sure that the parts/evidence would sink once it hit the water?

Well, even if it does land on land, it'd be hard to find (think about how little of the land is actually occupied), plus, it'd be so far away from the crime scene, it'd be VERY difficult to connect to any one specific crime.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 7:44 PM on June 13, 2004


And sent him up up and away to watch the balloons pop, until eventually, he just plummets to the earth?

Well, if there were really 300 balloons, then there's a good chance that at some point, so many would have popped that he would begin to descend, but enough would still be intact to keep him from falling fatally. You might very well just be transporting him somewhere else, quite gingerly. Perhaps he'd come down on the steps of a police station and tell them everything that happened.

it'd be hard to find (think about how little of the land is actually occupied), plus, it'd be so far away from the crime scene, it'd be VERY difficult to connect to any one specific crime.

A buried body deep in the backwoods is hard to find. A randomly dropped body somewhere in the region... I dunno. That would make me nervous. I agree that there is a lot of deep backcountry (at least there is in the western USA - gad bless us) and a balloon would be one efficient way to carry a body out into said backcoutry, assuming you couldn't drive it or hike it. Perhaps predators would even erase the evidence for you. But it leaves quite a bit to chance, not the least of which is the fact that the body would be up in the air for god-knows how long, giving god-knows how many people a chance to spot it, and begin following (or phone it in, or whatever).

You'd need to know your winds inside-out. In other words: I think you've stumbled upon the perfect body-disposal-method for murderer/meteorologists.
posted by scarabic at 7:55 PM on June 13, 2004 [2 favorites]


Doesn't vinegar turn bones rubbery? One might think it would also make bones easy to cut and grind.

1) Remove flesh
2) Rubberize bones
3) ?
4) Profit

If it takes a day to de-calcify the bones, then it shouldn't be too much work to have the entire corpse reduced to a soup consistency in two days. Dump it in any body of water and there wouldn't be anything at all to ever arouse suspicion.

That's for the lazy murderer. The right knife and a sledge hammer should have the corpse into manageable chunks in a few hours. From there, it's just a grill and a hungry dog and you're done.

If your dog turns up his nose, it should still be fairly easy to dispose of the corpse if you've pulverized the corpse into sufficiently small pieces. It doesn't seem reasonable to me that burnt human flesh should smell that much different from burnt steak. I think I read that the horrible smell of burning human corpses is largely attributable to the hair. The hair, the ashes and the dried bones should all fit in an inconspicuously sized and manageable bag. Spread out the remains as best you can. My dog constantly finds bones while we're on our walks. I've stopped even paying attention. I know dogs aren't supposed to eat chicked bones, but it's too late by the time it's already in her mouth.

Or more realistically, just don't kill someone that would cast suspicion on you. If you killed the next person that walked past your window, you could leave him on your porch and you'd probably be okay. (There may be other non-corpse related evidence, but it would be relatively easy to dispose of, say, a blowgun.)

Then SHUT THE HELL UP. Don't do the police detective's work. Don't ever talk about it to anyone. I think this is how a lot of people are caught.
posted by stuart_s at 8:00 PM on June 13, 2004


Incinerate the Mo'Fo.
Cut up your villian as prescribed by Scarabic (Med School much?). Get in with somebody at a hospital who has direct access to the incinerator (actually working at one will draw too much attention). Give the person small chunks of your fallen foe to toss in the incinerator and *poof* the trace is gone.
Other option is once again cut up into small pieces. Only, this time, get in with a deep sea fisher of sorts and toss into the ocean. Just be weary of what tide/ocean current you use less the body parts will arrive on the beach before too long.
Or if you want to kill them without getting caught, kidnap him and hop on your buddy's boat with him. Attatch a whole lot of weights to him and drop him off in the ocean, and you got an alibi. One caveat: get one other accomplice in on it that you don't metion to the police or anybody with a boat to hand the body off to and drop into the ocean- and be sure they can log a lot of miles before dropping off the body. A heavily trafficed ocean is the best.
posted by jmd82 at 8:01 PM on June 13, 2004


Get in with somebody at a hospital who has direct access to the incinerator (actually working at one will draw too much attention).

Right. How exactly are you going to meet and propose murder-accessory to someone without attacting *their* attention?
posted by scarabic at 8:06 PM on June 13, 2004


See, not so sure about the ocean. No matter how well chained and weighted, as the body decomposes, and bloats with gasses, it's going to tear apart and large chunks pop to the surface...
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 8:09 PM on June 13, 2004


buried Under/in some type of concrete might be best, if you're putting in a patio or a new inground pool.

Plus, unless the police are already DAMN sure it's you, they're very unlikely to dig up the ground under a new large pool, I'd think, if only cause (I'd assume) their dept. would need to pay for the repair and a new pool to be put in if nothing were found.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 8:12 PM on June 13, 2004


Right. How exactly are you going to meet and propose murder-accessory to someone without attacting *their* attention.
While the more people who know add complications, I'm proposing this is a murder for money whereupon you can split the money. Yea, yea, the more people who know leads to a greater chance of capture. Either that, or you can buy one for your own purpose body disposal service.
posted by jmd82 at 8:20 PM on June 13, 2004


Creepiest.AskMe.ever.
posted by jerseygirl at 8:20 PM on June 13, 2004


don't most coastal winds blow *in* from the sea? Besides, how would you make sure that the parts/evidence would sink once it hit the water

My genius scientist friend tells me the breeze goes back out over the water at night, so that'd still be doable for getting rid of evidence. Yes, it'd float a bit, but a dying ballon with a heavy gun would sink soon enough, and besides, it's more about getting it away from you and from the known crime anyway.

I stand by it heavily as far as ditching evidence. Ditching the actual person? Not so much. (though hands/fingerprints and such still may work)

To reply to elsewhere in the thread, I think the worst thing you can do is have an accomplice. That's just asking to be caught, and I would NEVER kill someone if I needed an accomplice to do it.

You know, not that I'd kill someone.

::innocent look::
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 8:23 PM on June 13, 2004 [1 favorite]


Best.AxeMe.Ever?
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 8:40 PM on June 13, 2004


I have to mark this thread. Sometime in the future, if I ever need this information, I'll have it available. I'm sure it will come in quite handy.... *evil laugh*
posted by graventy at 8:48 PM on June 13, 2004


1. you know your couch? it sucks, buy a new one
2. hollow out your old ugly couch
3. put body inside old ugly couch
4. order dumpster placed outside your home
5. throw couch in dumpster
6. throw in more trash on top, lots of it
7. call garbage company to haul dumpster away
posted by beth at 8:49 PM on June 13, 2004 [4 favorites]


If we've gotten to the section on voting who to kill, can I propose the next person to use "AxeMe" instead of "AskMe"?
posted by signal at 8:49 PM on June 13, 2004 [1 favorite]


1. hollow out body
2. put couch inside body
3. have a seat.
posted by quonsar at 8:58 PM on June 13, 2004 [26 favorites]


My answer depends on where I am, where the body is, how I killed the person, and how much time I think I have. In most cases I probably would NOT dispose of the body, since I would have taken the time to kill the person in a manner that cannot be directly traced to me.

...disposing of the body simply complicates matters, and makes it easier for the cops to tie me to the crime.

I would dispose of the murder weapon (if I didn't use poison or explosives) by using a bench grinder to turn it into unidentifiable powder.

If I think I'll have to dispose of multiple bodies over a period of time then I'd probably use a large tub full of grubs. The bones they leave behind would be pulverized and disposed of in a variety of ways.
posted by aramaic at 9:11 PM on June 13, 2004


Okay, enough of this. In the interest of "winning" this thread, I'm going to kill John Kenneth Fisher, and if any of you wankers can find his corpse, I'll concede that he was right, and I should have tied him to a balloon sometime in the evening.

*checks to see what JKF's ZIP code is*

Ahhh! Sopranoland! So many corpses below the wharf! Strenth in numbers, ah?

[just!]
[kidding!]
[jeeeezus!]
posted by scarabic at 9:46 PM on June 13, 2004 [4 favorites]


....

Oh, I think you won this thread pretty handily back there.

No, really. You won. No need to prove it.

Really.

(help)< small>
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 9:53 PM on June 13, 2004 [4 favorites]


(help)< small>

nuts.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 9:54 PM on June 13, 2004 [2 favorites]


When they had to get rid of a body in the book Fried Green Tomatoes, they just turned him into barbecue. Mmmm, long-pig.
posted by Melinika at 10:02 PM on June 13, 2004 [2 favorites]


I think the m.o. that elderly bank robber who was finally caught earlier this year (late last year?) applies here, too. Be sure to dispose of the body in a location that's at least a full day's drive away from wherever the murder took place. Especially a place where you have no previous ties. Never visit that place again.

*grabs bottle of Febreze, douses couch*
posted by emelenjr at 10:21 PM on June 13, 2004


JKF! You're cracking me up. Let's say that if I even knew you, and I ever did kill anyone anywhere where you live, and I wanted to escape capture, I would not ask for your help ;)

Luvya! Won't kill you or your "nuts!"
posted by scarabic at 10:30 PM on June 13, 2004


JKF maybe you should use the ballon idea on yourself to get the hell away from scarabic - just do it in the morning so you don't end up in the ocean.
posted by FidelDonson at 11:52 PM on June 13, 2004 [3 favorites]


One of my favorite books ever has the title "The Ability to Kill". It's a bunch of case studies about people who had almost pereptrated the perfect murder (or murders), but ended up getting caught due to one stupid detail.

I can only remember two of them though: in one, the guy disposed of the bodies with sulfuric acid, and then poured them down the drain. The other took place during WW2 and is far to grisly to explain this early in the morning.

My vote would be for the sulfuric acid, if you can get ahold of it.
posted by jaded at 5:52 AM on June 14, 2004 [5 favorites]


How does that one saying go...

Friends help you move. True friends help you move bodies.

I like the reduce-it-to-a-skeleton idea. But then again, I am a bone geek. You could then sell the skeleton on ebay (articulate it first if you feel like it) or donate it to an anatomy professor / biology teacher.
posted by beth at 6:12 AM on June 14, 2004


Wow, this is certainly the most interesting thread in some time. I would dump the body in an area with Alligators. When I lived near a Alligator farm, a cow had fallen into the pit. Before they could get the cow out, it was pretty much destroyed and that was only about 2 hours.

JKF's Balloon idea is genious. A very creative way to move evidence.
posted by renyoj at 6:30 AM on June 14, 2004


What about using a self-cleaning oven for home incineration?
posted by theora55 at 6:55 AM on June 14, 2004


What about using a self-cleaning oven for home incineration?

Depends on the model, but most ovens will produce some singularly awful odors -- they don't burn high enough to ignite the various gases, even when in self-clean mode. It's a problem for basement crematoria; you actually need to be somewhat clever to build one that's odorless.

Acids have an odor problem too, but you can probably fix that (and the crematorium problem) with some creative venting & possibly a home-built air scrubber.

You'd probably want to run a test using an animal. Which, now that I think about it, reminds me: you might be able to get some useful tips from the world of taxidermy.
posted by aramaic at 7:32 AM on June 14, 2004


My main problem would be what to do with the torso. Even drained, it's just a bit too big to casually carry out in public. Maybe if I could freeze dry it? Vacuum seal the chunks?

The catch here is that if you have a body on your hands, you've probably not planned the murder, so would be without the correct tools/enough helium to really get rid of it.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:34 AM on June 14, 2004


One of my favorite books ever has the title "The Ability to Kill". It's a bunch of case studies about people who had almost pereptrated the perfect murder (or murders), but ended up getting caught due to one stupid detail.

For example, if you insist on owning expensive, rare, horn-rimmed glasses--even if your prescription is common--make sure they aren't in your breast pocket whilst divesting yourself of the corpse.
posted by jbrjake at 7:57 AM on June 14, 2004 [2 favorites]


And never invite Jimmy Stewart over to taunt him at a dinner party after the murder. I made that mistake once.

Once.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 8:06 AM on June 14, 2004 [12 favorites]


JKF's Balloon idea is genious

Is that the opposite of ingenious or just a spelling mistake?
posted by biffa at 8:16 AM on June 14, 2004 [2 favorites]


By the way, this has apparently been MeTa'd.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 8:34 AM on June 14, 2004


What about leaving the body in any dept. store/cell phone co./utility co. line marked "Customer Care"? It would never be heard from again.
posted by Stoatfarm at 9:57 AM on June 14, 2004 [1 favorite]


I like the ocean idea, but you don't just weight the body down. Put it in a big drum and fill with concrete. Drive the boat out a hundred miles and dump. Eventually, the body will decay and leave a cavity in the concrete filled with decomposed goop. (Has anyone seen the episode of "Mythbusters" where they try to recreate Hoffa?) If the water is deep enough, the pressure will implode the concrete, and the goop will disperse throughout the ocean.

Of course, scarabic got it right. It's just too much work for me, though.
posted by jpoulos at 12:07 PM on June 14, 2004


I saw this documentary about these two college guys who went to visit this guy's beach house. The guy died, and the two guys had to keep people from finding out about it. What they did was they pretended the guy was still alive. Wherever they went, they would take the corpse with them and just act like everything was normal. They took it to restaurants, to the beach... even water-skiing. The scary thing was, it worked.
posted by Hildago at 12:25 PM on June 14, 2004 [28 favorites]


documentary? : >
posted by amberglow at 12:50 PM on June 14, 2004


Helium balloons have awful weight carrying capacity, as in two baloons three feet across just to carry about a half pound worth of camera and battery (I was investigating balloons for wifi repeating).

A gun? Forget it.
posted by effugas at 1:05 PM on June 14, 2004


Eh, you're just not thinking big enough, effugas.
posted by Sangre Azul at 1:56 PM on June 14, 2004


A biggie...
make sure that CBS's CSI doesn't investigate you!! They solve a massive crime with just a piece of hair as evidence!! And seem to have unlimited resources. Wholly realistic.
posted by aacheson at 2:07 PM on June 14, 2004


So don't do it in Las Vegas, Miami or (starting this fall) New York.

Las Vegas: What Happens Here Stays Here, my ass....
posted by wendell at 2:59 PM on June 14, 2004


so would be without the correct tools/enough helium to really get rid of it.

Beautiful.
posted by Ynoxas at 3:38 PM on June 14, 2004


I had a friend who worked at the local museum for a summer, and she reported that they had a room which housed some kind of gluttonous insects they use to quickly strip the flesh off of whales, so they can get to the bones more easily. I think I'd find out more about these bugs. I'd make some demented scrimshaw out of the bones and put it on my mantel, and this would be my undoing. You have to give the good guys a little something to work with, after all.
posted by picea at 4:14 PM on June 14, 2004 [2 favorites]


There won't be any dna left if the body is fully incinerated, as in a standard cremation. So what I'd do is open up a crematorium as a cover and process the victims that way.
posted by shoos at 4:45 PM on June 14, 2004


Bag up the pieces of the body in medical waste bags and dump the bags at the local hospital incinerator, in the appropriate place.
posted by Blue Stone at 6:05 PM on June 14, 2004


Okay, the temporary database divergence means that a few comments to this thread just disappeared, it looks like.

Reproducing them below....

Y'all are amateurs. The more cutting, cooking, and chemicalling you do, the more likely you are to leave trace evidence on yourself, and in a trail all the way to wherever you disposed of the body. Dennis Nilsen managed to rack up double digits, but still got caught because his careful cutting up and dumping down the toilet with lime and other chemicals didn't work- the plumbing overflowed. Boiling bodies down is part of what got Jeffery Dahmer caught- human beings stink when they are boiled down to the bones. 2 tiny teeth fragments and a few strands of hair put Richard Crafts away for the murder and woodchipper-disposal of his wife.



If you want to kill somebody and get away with it, look at the people who got away with it: Jack the Ripper did a fine and dandy job by knowing the neighhorhood well, killing his victims, and just leaving them there. Ted Bundy wouldn't have been caught if he hadn't let Carol da Ronch escape his VW bug: grab your victim, render him unconscious, and transport him to a spot deep in the woods to finish the job, leaving the evidence there. The Green River Killer excelled at body disposal: choose an openly accessible, but too large to patrol all the time, area and dump the bodies there. The key is to kill a stranger, and have only *one* crime scene: murder and disposal in approximately the same place. When you have secondary and tertiary crime scenes, you're just creating more places to leave evidence.



(OB disclaimer: I used to write police procedurals. Scarabic can keep the title of Scariest MeFite.)

posted by headspace at 11:18 AM PST on June 14






Dispose of it?? Why that body'd feed you for a YEAR!

posted by callmejay at 11:18 AM PST on June 14






Again, I reiterate, balloons, acid, and plumbing aside, best thing to do is pop them from a distance with a rifle, never get closer than you need to, and get the f--- out of there.

posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 11:48 AM PST on June 14




posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 6:10 PM on June 14, 2004 [1 favorite]


I'd run for Congress and win. Then I'd have sex with an intern, kill her, and hide the body. Whatever, I'd do what I want!
posted by crazy finger at 6:26 PM on June 14, 2004 [2 favorites]


This won't help you get rid of the body, but, it could let you get away scott-free, on the condition that your victim is famous:

Jerry Sadowitz, the scottish magician (and mostly bad comedian) reckons the ideal way to off a famous person is to send a picture of them, to them, along with a stamped, self-addressed envelope, requesting they sign the photo and return it.

They sign the photo, and pop it in the envelope you provided, the gum-strip of which contains a slow-acting, but lethal poison, which they ingest when they lick the envelope.

And not only does the person die, but they mail the only evidence back to you.
posted by Blue Stone at 7:18 PM on June 14, 2004 [25 favorites]


You should be able to fit plenty of bodies in one of these.
posted by Hypharse at 7:35 PM on June 14, 2004


crazy finger: hell, just leave the corpse in your office, and you might even get your own TV talk show.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:44 PM on June 14, 2004


Talk about an opportunity for a MefiSwap!
posted by billsaysthis at 9:10 PM on June 14, 2004


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