How to Dispose of a Body (Interesting Metafilter comment)

[sbovisjb1]

There was a thread on metafilter that jokingly asked people howto dispose of a body. Then an individual posted a serious answer. Tell me what you think and please give comments. http://ask.metafilter.com/7921/


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.


*NOTE: I have a bad feeling this is from NBK's PDF, but I don't have a copy with me atm*

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We do have a thread on this, quite old IIRC. If I find it, I'll merge the threads. - On second thought, perhaps its easier to not bother killing anyone at all, or having someone do it for you? :p

[crazywhiteguy]

I know this is going to make me sound like a newb, but the method from the show "Breaking Bad" was going to be mentioned sooner or later. The method was to cut the body up and dissolve it with sulfuric acid. To me it sounds a bit far fetched. If you have the reasources to get enough sulfuric acid to fill a third of a bathtub, you could probably pay someone to dispose of the body for you and then have that person killed. Also i think theres cheaper chemicals to use than sulfuric acid.

Cutting up the body is always a good idea. If your disposing of the body with chemicals. It will give it more surface area to dissolve. The smaller peices will be easier to transport seeing as two decent sized tupperware/rubbermaid containers could hold approxamately a 180lb person if he/she was cut into main parts.

[mike-hunt]

Dismembering may create to much forensic evidence to be advantageous one way perhaps to cut down on mess would be to place the body inside a plastic bag and into a chest freezer for several days before cutting it up with a suitable power tool .The body parts, freezer ,and tools can then be separately hidden . Really why use any complicated and time consuming method the cement shoe, sleeping with the fishes method or the engine block chained to the ankles variation is quick easy and still popular for a reason it works. Of course I am no expert and gust a big fan of murder novels and bad TV.

[Bugger]

Some years ago, in a small outback town in South Australia, there was a case involving a serial murderer who disposed of the bodies by dissolution in sulfuric acid contained in large plastic drums, which he kept in a disused bank building which he rented. He was eventually caught, and the old bank where he kept the drums of sulfuric acid was raided by the Pigs.

[festergrump]

I vaguely remember reading that Jeffrey Dahmer also sometimes used a plastic 55 gallon drum of sulfuric in his closet to disolve various body parts he felt weren't palatable or trophy-worthy. Supposedly he would scoop off the black sludge that remained every so often and give it the flush down the camode. Kill, Rinse, and repeat. What a sicko.

[Cobalt.45]

Dressing a corpse isn’t as easy as it sounds, but could be done if VERY careful to not make it evident (even so much as putting the belt on "wrong-handed" for instance, could tip a good ME). As soon as it’s known the body was manipulated, the charge is homicide/murder 1 (premeditation).

If you want to drain the body, do as the pros do (at least this is the urban legend)- hang it by the ankles over the shower head and let gravity do the work. And forget the bleach/candles/baking soda deal.:rolleyes: If you’ve wasted so much time that there’s decomp, you’ve taken too long.:(

Digging many holes isn’t a “best choice” IMO. Digging once, beforehand, would be a better option because of the lessened chance of discovery by cadaver dogs, hikers, etc, that might be more likely to run into one of many sites rather than just one site. One or a hundred, I wouldn’t bury in any event.

The whole scenario of disposing down the drain, bit by bit, is lame IMHO. You will have evidence left in your house, there’s the prob. of storage while you’re doing it, a septic tank negates the idea altogether, and if you try to even dispose of a raw chicken this way, you will soon see how much work it is.

I suppose there’s some merit in removing the shitter and dumping that way (you use a wet towel to cover the pipe when not in use:)), but… I would want the body well and truly disposed of, and not traceable to where I live(d). This assumes you weren't so stupid as to commit murder in your own home in the first place.:p

Hint- If you've already heard of, read or seen the perfect method, it's no longer perfect.

[iHME]

The method was to cut the body up and dissolve it with sulfuric acid.

I got the impression from the show that it was hydriodic Acid :confused:, tough what high school chem lab has gallons of that stuff? I might have heard it wrong.

If it was for me to dispose a body I'd cut it up, on many sheets of polyethylene.
Separate parts in ~5 plastic bags. Add many many layers of plastic bags.
Cast some cheap concrete around the bags, but leaving some small holes that will be plugged by water soluable stuff that dissolves in water, thus only bones would remain inside the block after prolonged submersion.

The rest would be hauling the blocks one by one to the sea and dropping them of the ship where it is at least 200m deep. The only thing people would think would be that you love fishing, if you do it correctly. Like place the blocks inside a 20l plastic gas can so that people would not be suspicious of you hauling concrete blocks ;)
Discard the bloody polyethylene by dissolving it in sulfuric acid or similar and flushing them down the toilet, preferably remove the toilet seat and pour it down the hole thus there will be no signs on the seat itself. Remember to add new silicone around the seat so that it will seem like it has newer been removed. You can also burn the polyethylene and discard the ashes but burning it wet might smell funny :rolleyes:

Oh man I like thinking creative stuff like this up.

[festergrump]

There's supposed to be some truth to the old wive's tale of being wary of people who keep pigs... The gluttons will supposedly eat you alive if you fall flat in the pigpen and they're hungry enough.

"They'll go through bone like butter", as Bricktop says in the movie Snatch. I was skeptical when I first saw the movie so I later asked a friend who has relatives who are farmers with pigs and other livestock, and they apparently confirmed it. If your not in an absolute hurry to be rid of the body, this may work. It's said you gotta starve them first. How many days might that take, I wonder?

I remember reading here at RS another thread where something was mentioned about burning the recently deceased. The idea was to basically wrap the body in such a way (with something or another :confused: I've forgotten now and I cannot find the thread again) to insulate the fatty tissue of the corpse to help fuel the fire and keep it hot enough to reduce bone to ash easily.

According to some accounts, the Germans became aware of a good ratio of women to men to keep the fatty tissue ideal for such fires, women generally being more fatty then men (females being about 25% fat on average, or so I've read elsewhere).

[Cobalt.45]

I like this one, from the original site:

"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"

[James]

I think for dissolving a body a combination of say a strong alkali solution and enzymes might work a little better. over in the 'Manufacture of sodium hydroxide (/theforum/showthread.php?t=6362)' they mention creating an alkali solution strong enough to 'dissolve a feather' from wood ashes IIRC. Papain (from papayas, pineapples or meat tenderizer) also breaks down protein. If one were really interested one could perform experiments (quite probably starting with say facial hair clippings and spare cuts of meat) to get an idea how long it would take. I also seem to recall there was a thread earlier where a certain mortuary item was discussed as a weapon, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it's called. (it was a plastic thing that could be placed on a round spike (or maybe it was an icepick) as a stay behind blood groover thing.)

[slarter]

I remember watching a show about some Medical Examiners and when they wanted to clean flesh off of bones they used concentrated H2O2 to dissolve it. It seemed to work pretty damn well.

As for pigs, I grew up on a farm and I remember seeing one snap a cows femur like a toothpick. We also used to throw all of the scraps left over from processing the animals (hogs, cows and chickens) in a pit and cover them with slaked lime [Ca(OH)2] to kill the stench and speed up decomposition. You can also buy it in 50 lb sacks without question.

The problem with cement shoes is that as the bodies decomp, they tend to fall apart (all of the single feet in sneakers washing ashore in the PNW) and a bloated body has enough bouyancy to float twice its weight. The idea to put them inside concrete and dump in deep water is one of the best I've seen.

Me personally, I'd prefer to dismember and dispose of in small containers filled with cement or other suitable dense material in either deep ocean water.

If I were in Florida I'd dispose of them in the old tailing ponds (called slime pits) of the Phosphate mines around Mulberry. My father worked at them for years and I spent considerable time playing there to learn that the tailing ponds are usually 250-300' deep and filled up with all of the sand, clay and silt left over from processing the Phosphate out. The slime has a tendency to form a colloidal suspension that is very reluctant to give up anything dropped in it. The one mine lost a D9 dozer in one of the slime pits when the dyke it was on collapsed. I figure that you get a bunch of small 5 gallon drums, load half full of body parts and half full of cement and drop them into one of the slime pits from an air boat (they usually have a layer of water on top).

Watch the show "Dexter" on Showtime to get some good ideas for corpse diposal. The main character is a Forensic technician that doubles as a Serial Killer. :eek:

Other ways I've thought about are to dispose of them in the bombing ranges on military bases. Over the years I've seen many times where a 1000 or 2000 lb practice bomb has impacted and left a hole in the ground that was 18-24" in diameter and over 30 feet deep. Drop the body down one of those and put a small charge in after to collapse the hole. As an added benefit, the ranges are all "Restricted Areas" where very few people have access. I happened to GPS a couple of these holes a few years back. ;) Hell, if you happen to find a dud 1000 lb bomb you could use that to aid in disposal. :cool:

The biggest mistake most people make is to stop planning for what happens afterwards. You need to plan out for at least a few months after the fact for what you are going to do.

[festergrump]

Slarter, when you mentioned Florida I got to wondering just how many bodies haven't been found when they were left for the crocodiles and alligators. Sure, they stick the body under a log or something deep down underwater for a week or so to soften up the tissue a bit, but then it's chowtime. Bye bye body.

[Lewis]

...dispose of them in the bombing ranges on military bases.

For some odd reason, attempting to sneak onto a section of guarded military base with high explosives detonating randomly around you, whilst carrying a recently murdered corpse doesn't strike me as a good idea. :confused:

[slarter]

For some odd reason, attempting to sneak onto a section of guarded military base with high explosives detonating randomly around you, whilst carrying a recently murdered corpse doesn't strike me as a good idea. :confused:

I worked on the ranges for years and they are inactive during most Federal Holidays and it's easy to call Range Control and ask for the upcoming schedule, some even post it on the internet. As long as you watch where you are going and stay out of the ICM Grids (where they drop the cluster munitions) and don't pick up souvenirs you will be fine.

In CA and NV there are huge tracts of land used for artillery and aerial bombing that are wide open with just a cheesy fence and some warning signs. Use an ATV and NVG's at night and they'll never know you were there.

[fluoroantimonic]

I have seen what H2O2 does to remains (not human :P). It is pretty slow, even when most of the tissue has already been removed, I wouldn't recommend it. Also, don't bother with acids, a 55 gal drum of conc. sulfuric is better used for other things.

I would buy three or four 50 lb sacks of Ca(OH)2 and mix that with an appropriate amount of saturated Na2CO3 solution. Cut the body into a few pieces and toss it in a big plastic trash bin, pour in the resulting NaOH solution and let it digest for as long as needed (a few days IIRC). As far as I know a similar method is sometimes used to destroy animal carcasses in landfills. I think the NaOH will destroy DNA and turns the flesh into a brown soup. The bones and teeth are supposedly made into a brittle powdery form that is easily crushed up. Once digested and crushed, the vat of sludge could be dumped anywhere appropriate with little suspicion. All in all, pretty quick and easy I do believe.

[ChippedHammer]

I think cutting the body up into separate pieces and casting them into concrete blocks is the way to go, once dropped far out to sea there is no way anyone will be finding them again.

If you need it done ASAP and have plenty of conc H2SO4 & H2O2 then a vat of piranha solution will do nicely.

BTW: In breaking bad they used HF to dissolve the body :)

[James]

Re: fitting someone for concrete overshoes is supposed to be a bad idea because as has been mentioned the joint go out allowing the body to float and supposedly few boats come supplied with cement. Wiring them up with an anchor is supposedly a little better as boats have anchors and wire (peeled from Lexs' comments in Callahan's Con by Spider Robinson).
I really think one should try to avoid acquiring corpses. :) I don't suppose a thin alkali slurry would be better by using the body's own water to form event more dissolving fluid (and incidentally neutralizing any remaining acid. I suppose on could use a pump and stuff to replace the corpses blood with such a solution/slurry.

[rangegal]

You go to a paint store and buy a couple gallon cans of aluminum powder, then go to a hardware store and buy a couple cans of concrete die (iron oxide). Weigh them out on a bathroom scale and mix them up at the appropriate ratio. Dig a grave in a secluded area in the middle of a sunny day, put the body in, cover it in thermite, put your sunglasses on and light it up! If you used enough thermite there should be a bubbling mass of fat and molten iron in the end. Fill the hole back in and move a log or something over the area and make it look natural. You don't want the ground to look disturbed. Maybe you can even cut the grass with a shovel and lift it up like a blanket to move it, then replace it in the end. This may be more effective if the body is disassembled as others have described, plus that would obviously make transportation easier, which is a whole different story.

As a side note, this thread is the reason NBK is innocent, as he already knows how to do all of this properly. He wouldn't have just dumped the victims body in a creek on his OWN LAND!

[Intrinsic]

You go to a paint store and buy a couple gallon cans of aluminum powder


A couple of gallons of aluminum powder?? Care to share your source Rangegal? In the US? I would love to find an OTC source like that.... I haven't seen aluminum powder OTC in quite a while.

[sbovisjb1]

I believe in the method, Keep It Simple works best. The less you do the less you can screw up.

[Cobalt.45]

I, too, had considered a thermite reaction to be a possibility. I would want to run some proof of concept experiments before committing to thermite. A dead hog would be a good stand-in.

The reaction is so brief (< 1 minute regardless of size, IIRC) that there may be insufficient time to fully decomp a body/body's worth of parts unless one HELL of a huge charge was used.

I do like the idea of inceneration, though. Total inceneration would be about the only way no DNA would be left, IMHO.

Although acid/base decomp might destroy tissue and bone, wouldn't the soupy remains be easily identified (if found) as being consistant with human remains? And would chemical destruction also destroy DNA?:confused:

Starts to make a good ol' hole in the ground in an orange grove in Winter Garden, FL look pretty good...;) I'd bet anything that there are MANY unfound bodies now resting under the numerous subdivisions that now dot the FL landscape after the freezes drove the grove owners out of business.

[Lewis]

Aluminum powder can still be found from some suppliers, or better yet, produced easily at home.

I'm not sure how thermite would be able to readily disintegrate bone matter, and a charred skeleton is just as telling as an unharmed one. If this was a viable method of destroying a body, it would be best to store the thermite in bulk beforehand in the event of killing someone.

The last thing you want to do is start building a ball mill when you have a decaying corpse in your home!

[fluoroantimonic]

If you really want to be sure and destroy all the DNA I think high temperatures are the surest way to go. But if no one ever suspects the leftovers as remains, it doesn't really matter now does it. If you are disposing in the ocean/lake and are worried about pieces washing up on the beach, this might not be a bad way to solve it: http://savefile.com/files/1773605 I'm sure it would decompose naturally very fast after that treatment.

With tons and tons of thermite, I'm sure there would be nothing left, but there would have to be a LOT, I don't know how you could get that much Al powder unless you milled it yourself. You might as well just burn the body if you want to go that route, much cheaper too. Then maybe mix the ashes with a small amount of thermite to destroy it completely :P

I think more important than disposal of the body, is prevention of it being linked back to you in the first place. I would go as far as possible with that, if I killed someone in my house (or theirs I suppose) I wouldconsider burning it down to destroy any evidence, making sure it was not too suspicios. I'd rather be out my house than spend 20 in the pen.. It all depends on the situation I suppose, makes those sort of things hard to plan.


Aluminum powder can still be found from some suppliers, or better yet, produced easily at home.

I was just thinking about rigging up a large scale aluminum ball mill, for production of Al powder for use in fairly large thermobaric detonations among other things. I have a 5 hp electric motor and several 55 gallon drums. The Al source would probably be bulk Al foil (for restaurants, etc.) that costs 2-3 dollars per pound. Any reason that wouldn't work? I'm still not sure about what grinding media to use.. Buying enough large steel bearings would get very expensive. Maybe get some 2-3" dia steel rod and cut it to the same length as the barrel? You could probably cast some big lead balls out of scrap lead fairly easily too. Maybe fill some cheap steel pipe with lead and use that...

[Intrinsic]

You don't want to use steel media when milling aluminum because of the possibility of it sparking. There are a couple good threads around about ball mill construction and media, and making powdered aluminum.

Ball mills and media discussion:
http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?t=1061

Aluminum:
http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?t=5627

[Cobalt.45]

I was just thinking about rigging up a large scale aluminum ball mill, for production of Al powder for use in fairly large thermobaric detonations...For thermite at least, melting scrap cans, etc. for formation of spherical might be as efficient.

You could even try scrap-priced swarf from a machining op of some sort, rather than any virgin material.For thermite, a wide size/mesh range of Al will suffice, just as long as you have a hot enough of an ignition source.

But as said before, would take a hell of a pile to do a body in one shot.:(

[MrResearch]

A huge campfire in a garden shouldn't be eye-catching in the summer. Get much wood, put the corpse in the middle and let it burn for some hours. There should not be much left except maybe a few bones which can be crushed.

[Hinckleyforpresident]

A huge campfire in a garden shouldn't be eye-catching in the summer. Get much wood, put the corpse in the middle and let it burn for some hours. There should not be much left except maybe a few bones which can be crushed.

The smell would be terrible...

I can just see how it would play out (joking):

Neighbor - "Hey, you cookin' something funny on the fire?"
Criminal - "Uh, just a BBQ"
Neighbor - "I've never smelled pork or beef like THAT before? You must be doing something wrong here......" *walks over to firepit and looks "Oh.... Oh my god!"
Criminal - *swings log and wacks neighbor in the back of the head* "Crap"

Now there are two problems :p.

[sbovisjb1]

Id believe that if you remove the head, hands and feet from the main body and you bury them separately. Those are smaller body parts and easier to dispose of. Burying the main corpse or dumping it in the river with weights is preferable as if the corpse is found, it will be very difficult to identify it. Another method I have heard done is cutting up the body into chunks and boiling it. This strips the flesh from the bones. You then dump that liquid into any public water waste disposal system after you have mixed it with bleach. Now you have the bones (identifiable by an anthropologist or dentist still) Then I would suggest that you put the bones into a bag and get a large hammer and crumble them into fragments and then either dispose of the fragments by burial or the river.

*Note: All this is theoretical and should not be attempted by anyone.

[Cobalt.45]

Criminal - *swings log and wacks neighbor in the back of the head* "Crap"

Now there are two problems :p.Well, at least the fire's still lit!:D

[James]

Hmm, didn't I see a thread where someone was (IIRC) making Al flakes by processing foil bit in a blender with salt (and maybe oil). Also If your gonna burn the body, you might consider sticking it in a semi-enclosed area vessel to increase the efficiency of the burn. (less heat radiated uselessly into space etc.) As for braking down DNA in the lye/lime method there are chemicals to cut DNA at specific markers (Forensic tech use them in DNA matching). Even better would be something that completely depolymerizes DNA (and RNA) into about half a dozen chemicals each. Plus if the process were fast enough you could do it in a bathtub and flush it down the drain (I think it's to slow and cinematic though)

[JouMasep]

A lovely topic; and quite practical. After all, many of us would be inclined at times to bash in this or that person’s brains with a ball peen hammer -if it were not for that damnable resulting corpse. Wither the foul, decomposing mass, we ask! This good forum will oblige of course.

But for every nice and practical idea, there’s one that fails the test of scrutiny. I’ll join Hinckley in his detraction.

Dear Mr Research,

RE: A huge campfire in a garden shouldn't be eye-catching in the summer.
We may hope that you will never be in the unfortunate position to have to contend with some inconvenient body in your house or garden, which body will have to disappear in order to keep you a free man – but we cannot be sure of this of course!

It is thus most prudent to think ahead and cover this contingency even before it arises.

However, I feel I have to caution you should you ever be inclined to implement your most ill advised method of body disposal.

I feel a kinship to your esteemed person –even if it is merely by virtue of being a fellow member of this most worthy forum and I would not be pleased if the following would take place:

After doing in your relative, you have schlepped a good amount of wood to the back of your garden, forming a bed whereupon you presumably propose to dump your very wealthy and loathsome recently bludgeoned aunt. No doubt you will further cover her bloodied corpse with more wood and light the whole kabang with barbeque lighter blocks of the best quality.

And so the calamities commence that will have you kept for a long, long time at the taxpayer’s expense. (Depending on your location, such keeping may be well shorter, should your appeals have been finally exhausted)

1) Unless you have had the forethought to regularly make very large fires, lasting quite long, in your garden’s back, you will effect the contrary of what you should be doing –you will attract a lot of attention; the entire neighbour hood will be wondering what the hell ole M.R is doing!
2) Adding to the general smoke, flames and loud cracking and raging of the fire, there will be the unmistakable smell of burning hair and flesh (clothing? -or did you undress the fat lady first). The stench alone will be alarming. I can assure you that you will fool nobody when you say that your barbeque meat is from a different supplier.
3) And unless the amount of wood is very large, and the duration of the fire is very protracted, there will remain a surprising amount recognizable material once the fire dies. The need to dispose of this successfully only changes the scale of the initial problem –there is less of it now. But it does not disappear. In fact you have now an even bigger problem:
3.1 Your aunt is missing; there will be knocks on your front door.
3.2 You have created a spectacle to the visual, hearing and olfactory senses of your neighbours that will remain for quite some time in their memories.
3.3 You will now have to sift through a large amount of burnt and semi-burnt woody material in order to have at least a fair hope that they won’t find too much remaining auntie stuff. But if you get the good forensic guys in your back garden, you won’t have a prayer’s. You could first cast a concrete floor and screed this quite smooth. That would help. You would still have a mass of charred and semi charred material that will show on forensic emission spectrophotmetric and other analyses that a human body was burnt there –even if all DNA evidence has been destroyed.

The device to properly deal with a body through incineration is called a crematorium (or “oven” if one refers to the more industrial type of device as used with success in World War II). A crematorium is a highly specialized type of apparatus that uses vast amounts of fuel, in such a way that only ashes remain. Only this type of device fully turns a body to ash. Few of us can aspire to possess such useful equipment for private use.

Further, a trace of ash, by virtue of its composition will indicate human remains as opposed to other species. The relative distribution of trace elements will bear this out. The latter statement is merely my opinion –I cannot quote any sources for this.

Less technologically advanced cultures, e.g. the Indians still burn their dead on a pyre such a you propose. However they have the good sense to float the flaming merry lot down the river Ganges –so the charred stumps sink to the bottom to prevent the dogs running off with them.

‘Better spend a weekend in your bathroom with some kitchen appliances, power tools and a good knife (sharpener as well!). Flush auntie through the toilet, with lots of water –bit by little bit. Don’t take many baths at home that month -to even out your water bill if need be. It’s ok to occasionally wash off all the grime and blood of course.

Buy a pump-fed breathing mask. And after it’s all done, remove your carpets and wash everything with a solution of slightly acidified HTH–till the first Cl2 fumes come off. Wash everything, including the ceiling. Now paint everything. Buy a new carpet. If you had vinyl in your toilet or bathroom, replace that too. (Wash with Cl2 solution after stripping as well) The prudent murderer would first remove the carpets, before the kill –to later reinstall them.

It goes without saying that we need no witnesses to all the cutting and flushing. Send one’s wife or girlfriend for a weekend to mom. (In the event one’s choice for a spouse was so lamentably poor that one actually needs to off one’s wife –that’s one worry less. But I’d be loathe to advocate that route. Perhaps consulting a good marriage counsellor is less complicated.)

A lot of work –but look at the benefits: a nice inheritance, renovated bathrooms and spring cleaning, all in one fell swoop!

Alternatively I’ll offer a method as introduced by the Dutch author and weirdo, Jan Wolkers. (Note objection to wife-killing.)

In quite a nice sample of humour noir, he has in a short story a pensioner dispensing with his nagging wife by buying a large chest freezer, boasting that it would be big enough to accommodate her -which she wants to try for her self. He then locks it, plugs in, and checks how things are after a week.

During this week he has plenty of time to think of a way…

He considers installing a large tube in the centre of his car. He would then lower the frozen body therein and take a drive on a rainy day. (What to do with the remaining “disc”. I ask?)

In the end, he carves up her frozen body, bit by bit, with an electric carving knife I believe. He lives in the house with the highest roof around, and because it is a flat roof, it lends itself well to putting up a large feeding tray there. The large flocks of seagulls that so vexed his wife with their screams, were very well fed for weeks.

The bones he ground to meal in a small mill, and this was burnt in his pot stove.

There is the problem with the unusual influx of seagulls, but on the other hand a lot of meat can be taken care of in a few minutes, then all will be as before.

Here in Africa, we sometimes throw corpses to the lions. In one such case a white guy was convicted of doing so when the black guy was still alive. But after some 5 years in jail he got out on parole, after appeal –it was not proven the guy was not already beaten to death before he got chucked over the fence. The parolee may have personnel recruitment problems on his game farm forever I reckon.

The cops searched their butts off. But al that remained was a bit of skull bone. Lions rock; pigs are the poor man’s lion. You don’t need to starve a lion first.

I hear dogs can munch even their naturally deceased owners –if not fed for a week and locked up with the corpse. It’s not the dog in the hunger, but the hunger in the dog…….

(OK, the practice of throwing corpses to lions here was blatantly overstated –the story as I wrote it did actually happen though.)

[Cobalt.45]

Lions do indeed rock!

But an Afrikaner w/a wife who doth henpeck, need only look to the range of the not-as-noble but twice-as-tenacious and steel-jawed Crocuta crocuta to consume any offending worldly vessel.

An equally final solution might well be realized by timing ones transgression to coincide w/the ungulate migration where the local Crocodilia do haunt the river, ever vigilant for flesh, alive or otherwise.

But I like the idea of feeding the hyenas, myself!:D

[Alexires]

It might be feasible to use burning, but instead of using massive amounts of fuel (liquid) or building a pyre to the Gods, perhaps just use bottled O2. Anything burns with enough oxygen.

Wrap the victim in some cotton soaked in fat/candle wax in a metal box big enough to hold the body with vents in one side (perhaps leading to your wood oven), light it up, and start pumping in the oxygen. Hopefully the oxygen cleans up all the bad smells (you could pass the smoke through a kind of condensing tube with an ozone generator at the bottom, but that is a little hard).

Might even get rid of the bones and teeth too, if you are lucky.

As with most things here, try with your pig first to test it.

Not sure about the thermite. It burns hot, but probably doesn't have enough energy, especially with something that is a massive sack water like a body.

Probably wouldn't be that hard to sneak into a meat works and dispose of the body/remains in their grinder.

[Hirudinea]

I think that the freezer, defleshing, dumping small amounts for flesh for animals, and grinding the bones in a grinder is probably the best method, or if your not in a hurry and a bit parinoid about dumping flesh in public you could slowly eat the corpse yourself.

[sbovisjb1]

Lions do indeed rock!

But an Afrikaner w/a wife who doth henpeck, need only look to the range of the not-as-noble but twice-as-tenacious and steel-jawed Crocuta crocuta to consume any offending worldly vessel.

An equally final solution might well be realized by timing ones transgression to coincide w/the ungulate migration where the local Crocodilia do haunt the river, ever vigilant for flesh, alive or otherwise.

But I like the idea of feeding the hyenas, myself!:D
Theres more of us!! :D But yes. In Africa people dissapear all the time no questions ask. Here in Umtata, it happens all the time. (think the shithole close to East London) Note: Have to hole dug before hand. Or take a ride in the Cessna over the veldt and dump the body mid air. Who will notice?

[fluoroantimonic]

Or take a ride in the Cessna over the veldt and dump the body mid air.

Actually I like that idea, here in Alaska there is plenty of utterly uninhabited area to do that. I even have access to a small airplane to do it with :)

[slarter]

The biggest problem with most methods is trace evidence. You can buy 20 ft x 200 ft (6m x 60m) rolls of 6 mil plastic sheeting and use it to cover every surface (to include the ceiling) of where you plan to work with the corpse. Afterwards you would want to burn the sheeting to dispose of any residue. During any time you are working I would recommend wearing a Tyvek suit with gloves and booties, then dispose of them also.

[shady mutha]

In my town we had a serial killer who just wrapped bodies in bin liners and chucked them in large garbage bins.
After a few killings he started to feel bad and confessed.
Anyhow it took weeks of systematic searching to find the bodies even after he told them of his disposal method.
A variation of the theme would be to take the body straight to the dump at night and hide it there.
In another case a charming young fellow threw his girlfriend in a bin a set it alight. This was done in a industrial area and the fire burned all night. The charred remains were difficult to identify and the case was not solved until he finally confessed to his dark deed.
From what I understand the killing is the easy part, its the psychological pressure after the job that gets to some people.

[Positron]

A body, a wood chipper, and a stoichiometric amount of Ammonium Nitrate :D. Grind it all up together, several times. Throw a match in the chipper when it's all done, I bet it burns fiercely within a few minutes. 3 sacks of fertilizer would do it.

OR...perhaps if you can get everything ground finely enough, you can experiment with the new explosive compound ANFH. Ammonium Nitrate Fuel HUMAN :eek: Drop in a booster and watch the DNA go away at 5000+m/s.

EDIT: This is probably really fucking stupid, as a human body isn't that great of a fuel. (But I aint gonna test it).

[Alexires]

Yeah, past the wood chipper you idea sucks ass. Shit, even with the wood chipper, it sucks ass. Anyone that has tried to get AN to burn knows that it doesn't really burn much at all. That and a human body is a good 80% water, so your AN is suddenly soaking wet.

Even if you just used the wood chipper, you would need to get rid of it afterwards.

Please let your post have been sarcasm, and your humour was just so subtle it slipped under my radar....

[Necrophagist]

I think if the idea of feeding a body to pigs would work, it would be one of the best ways. As for burning a body, what about using thermite? I'm sure it burns hot enough to get rid of the entire body, bones, teeth, etc. So it could be done if you could find an area secluded enough to do it in.

[Alexires]

Thermite is not the answer to everything, Necrophagist. I think we have already talked about it previously in this thread.

[Lewis]

Thermite is not the answer to everything

What? This cannot be!

My world has been quite literally ripped out from under me!

While some seemingly silly things have been suggested in this thread, I do wonder about the viability of destroying a body with explosives. In the right setting, as suitably large amount of explosive could spread a corpse fine enough over an area for it to be completely eaten and decomposed in under a week.

Obviously the noise of the blast itself would attract attention, but it an area suitably rural enough, might only attract the most casual of investigations...

[festergrump]

Call me crazy, but in the event of disposing of an unwanted corpse, attention of any kind no matter how casual, is exactly the last thing I would want. I'd much prefer to take my chances with time as a factor than attention of any kind whatsoever... this includes the din of an explosion no matter how remote the area.

Were it me who created the lifeless body to be disposed of, surely it would have been as quiet as possible in the method of killing also. Why ruin the stealth with a sonic boom which (1) attracts needless attention and (2) may leave bits and pieces of DNA over a vast range for scrutiny to determine is human tidbits... hence possible foul play?

I never understood the thought process behind many serial killers dividing up the corpse to bury in several different places, either. Seems to me there would be a greater opportunity for one of the sites to be found this way.

Whatever. I doubt I shall ever face such a dilemma in my lifetime.

[Cobalt.45]

...I do wonder about the viability of destroying a body with explosives.Actually I do remember a hapless meth-head (who also owned a lion, tho possibly not at the same time he needed to dispose of the body) being on the tube for getting caught out in Nevada(?) after exploding a corpse.

He had been blowing stuff up all along, so likely the actual explosion of the body was just one of many at the time.

Either he didn't use enough explosive or wasn't done correctly- for one thing he left the body dressed- so clothing shreds along w/DNA were found.

But in any event, the whole scheme fell apart for one reason or another. But that's not to say the explosives were at fault- this guy was VERY inept, not to mention propped up on meth...

[Alexires]

Can't really take this as a source, but something to think about:

A CSI episode had a guy standing near a breifcase bomb that went off. Massive explosion, killed heaps of people, etc. Thing is, he was left mainly intact, the only part that was missing was his ears (apparently they get torn off in explosions)

So, I know of the Red Mist video that was talked about earlier (it was originally from The Forum video website), but I don't know how well it would work on humans without a LOT of explosive. Enough to draw way too much attention.

Hungry dogs are the way to go, with some pigs to clean up the bones. That or HF for the bones.

[Winter Wolf]

While I absolutely agree that thermite is not the answer to everything I had a thought experiment a while back to discover an answer to this dilemma i.e how to dispose of a body. My thoughts were along the lines of 6 mil plastic sheeting, a wood chipper, a cheap hatchet, heavy duty garbage bags, and thermite.

The plan, roughly stated, would be to render the corpse into manageable sections with the hatchet in an area pre-prepared with the 6 mil sheeting. Then place the sections into the wood chipper with multiple heavy duty garbage bags containing the resulting slurry. ignite a quantity of thermite on/in the wood chipper to destroy any remaining dna evidence, and dispose of the bags of viscera in a nearby swamp.

The wood chipper would then be disposed of in a distant location, preferably in an area where appliances and scrap metal are disposed so as to minimize any questions.

My reasoning for this line of thought was that it would not be necessary to use nearly as large a quantity of thermite as the heat would do as much to render any remaining dna evidence unusable. Of course this would require that one already have, and use fairly regularly wood chipper(s) on ones property. If you are so unfortunate to be the recipient of a search warrant one would want to be in possession of a working wood chipper that shows signs of obvious use and wear, but without that pesky damning evidence of corpse disposal.

Of course this would not be an option for most due to many factors, but in my particular circumstance it would be plausible. Of course this is all just a hypothetical thought experiment so the point is moot.


Cheers

[ChippedHammer]

It all comes down to what you have on hand, If you had a large HDPE drum, plenty of sulfuric acid, hydrogen peroxide and a remote location then you could easily dispose of the body by dissolving it with piranha solution. That stuff will eat through anything organic.

[James]

IIRC I saw an episode of a real crime show where one of the segments was roughly thus. Guy gets really ticked of at his Germanic stewardess girlfriend/wife and bumps her off. then he chops up and freezes her corpse before feeding it (and her mail) into a wood chipper (which I think he rented and hosed off) overlooking a creek/river. I suppose If I had a corpse and a job at a boiler, I might feed the corpse into the firebox thereof and send my coworker off for a beer when it came time to clean it out. which would have the advantages of a high smokestack (to disperse the aforementioned stench) and a degree of denyablility. Or I suppose one could 'chip' the body and compost it somewhere. It'd depend on your circumstances. Heck, I remember another real-crime show where a kid invited someone over killed them and put the body in the municipal trash. (and might have gotten away w/ it if he'd washed out the can.)

[Combustable Wishes]

Unless you live with a mile radius of trees, a wood chipper wouldn't really do it. That's a lot of noise, and if any neighbor comes over to check up on you or chip some of their own problems and sees you feeding plastic bags into the feeder, well how many trees do you bag before sending through? It just doesn't look natural. And unless you can then separate yourself from the machinery so that know thinks of you when they find blood in the feeder (I would use ammonia I believe it was to destroy enough DNA in the fluids) then it is just more evidence.

On cement shoes, the body would decompose, yes, but if it held together for a couple of weeks (three is the safety zone if I am remembering correctly) the body wont float, unless the person offed was a real fat ass. Well actually even then most likely floating would be a small chance. And if you're still worried make sure that right before that last push a jab piercing the digestive tract, hopefully an intestine, to release built up gasses formed by those bacteria, and one in between the collar bone and the neck to get anything trapped by the skin. Make it with a simple tool, like a screw driver that can be handled with one glove and doesn't create a spray, and can be dropped in the water too. It those gases that bloat the body and make it float, so allow those to escape and no one but the fishes has to see your friend ever again...

[Alexires]

If more shit like this keeps happening, it won't matter whether you did the crime or not, you will be convicted based upon how you dress. Sorry, did I just say that? I meant based upon your EEG.

See here (http://gizmodo.com/5050857/future-arrives-early-judge-uses-brain-scan-to-convict-person-of-murder).

[Cobalt.45]

Glad that'll never happen HERE!:rolleyes:

Reminds me of a 'net dating deal where a phone call is routed through a sort of voice analyzer thing to tell one of the hopefuls whether or not the prospective partner is being upfront, etc. Except w/o the life sentence... or is it?:D

[Alexires]

I saw a program like that online a while back. It would be interesting if it actually worked, if so, it would be interesting to see if some punk is lying to you or a LEO is leading you in for entrapment.

I wouldn't be so sure that shit like that won't be used in the future. Be just like a bunch of fed assholes to persuade a "jury of your peers" (like those sheeple will ever be my peers) that you are guilty because of a spike on your EEG.

[Cobalt.45]

I wonder what an EEG would resemble w/2 hits of white Owsley or a massive dose of DMT under your belt!!!:eek:

I see drugs as a major hurdle for the technology to overcome. Properly dosed it should- in theory- be possible to smear the results enough to cause doubt, if not outright acquittal. The same problem as a polygraph has.

But I suppose there would be a finger stick or piss test to see just what you had on board.:(

A blood draw would require a judge's order (as it is now), in which case there'd prob. be a heavy felony charge involved. But any lesser use of the technology might leave the door open to doping.;)

[mike-hunt]

A few improvements on the concrete shoes body dump based on some of the above posts.Using a sharpened steel bar insert several lengths of pipe into the corpse to help in the release of gases this will also serve as an easy entrance for sea critters to more quickly break down the body. Wrapping in several layers of fishing net will keep the body together and also help in camouflaging it from possible witnesses . Stealing a boat shouldn't be a problem and since the boat is not yours why not use the anchors and auxiliary outboard to weigh down the body . If dumped away from any fishing and dive sites it most likely will never be found.

[sbovisjb1]

Best way as most have found, is to reduce the blood, bodily fluids emissions at death. (note: bowl movement is to be expected upon death) Plausible deniability is key here so find a location where a lot of other biological data is scattered around, data that masks that of your victim or more importantly yours. Once the deed is done, erase it from your memory and get rid of anything and everything that could link you to it. Shut up [sic] and don't ever mention it to anyone again.

[chembio]

IMHO, a hacksaw and several sacks of cement could be used to dispose of a corpse.

As someone mentioned before, cutting up a body and casting the separate parts into several blocks of cement could be used to dispose of the body.

Firstly, I'd use the hacksaw to cut apart the body at the joints. Since most joints are covered by a layer of ligaments, a hacksaw should be able to cut through the layer and separate the bones (think torn ligaments). Then, I'd separate the parts by size (would be tedious, I guess) and place them in garbage bags.

Then it'll be a matter of casting the garbage bags into blocks of cement, and burying them. Or maybe, take a hike into a nearby forest, and dump the cement block somewhere off the beaten tracks.

Of course, everything in the house needs to be scrubbed clean with bleach after the 'operation' to throw the scent off in case any pigs come around. Hence, I'd conclude that keeping all activities within a small room is the best, since the affected area would be smaller and hence, easier to sterilize.


Exercise, spring-cleaning, and garbage-disposal, 3-in-1 :p

[Alexires]

Freezing it first will make it a lot easier to cut.

Remember to wear gloves and leave the hacksaw in the concrete blocks when you are done. If you do that, there shouldn't be much mess. Also, before you are ready to toss it into the concrete, get a piece of raw chicken you have left out for a couple of hours in the heat and attach it to the body part with some paper (just wrap it). The bacteria in it will help it decompose faster than if it were straight out of the freezer into concrete.

[festergrump]

Hmm... Would maybe Rid-X or some other septic tank enzyme be good for this also? Wetted and applied liberally, it might make shorter work than the few stray from a "ripe" piece of chicken left to colonize first. Just a thought.

[Cobalt.45]

Trying to sanitize a crime scene from any and all biological material seems to be nearly impossible, given the advanced state of forensics. There will nearly always be something left behind that is incriminating like hair, blood, fibers, etc.

So, instead of cleaning it up, mess it up!:D

Hair and fiber evidence could be so badly contaminated with “foreign” material that to make any sense of it would be very difficult. As well as provide a defense lawyer with enough ammo to defend against a charge, if it were to go that far.

Scatter so fucking much different fiber, hair, dirt from all over the place (even better if scraped from beneath out-of-town cars or semi trucks), twenty different shoe prints (from a second hand store), food and drink wrappers from dozens of fast food joints, cigarette butts from a bunch of different ashtrays- to the point of making the forensics people shit themselves!

One place where you could get literally pounds of hair and fiber, is from a junk yard. Useful if a crime were committed in an auto. Hair from a barber or salon wouldn’t work- they’d notice that it was freshly cut. Abandoned houses or houses under renovation would be good for false evidence, if a crime were committed in a house. Sweep off carpet that has been thrown away and scatter that around.

Blood to contaminate a crime scene with is only slightly more problematical. You can’t use anything from people you know, in the event they are tested or questioned. But the waste left behind in bathrooms- women's bathrooms- if you follow my drift, will provide all the blood you could ever need. And, it even comes with a handy applicator! Boxing gyms and sports locker rooms would have bloody garbage. While you’re at it, throw in some animal blood for good measure.

[Alexires]

Ooooh, I love that. Contaminate your crime scene with tampons. If you leave it, make sure to leave the heater on so the next person to open the door gets a surprise....

[slarter]

One place where you could get literally pounds of hair and fiber, is from a junk yard. Useful if a crime were committed in an auto. Hair from a barber or salon wouldn’t work- they’d notice that it was freshly cut. Abandoned houses or houses under renovation would be good for false evidence, if a crime were committed in a house. Sweep off carpet that has been thrown away and scatter that around.



Cobalt, another good source would be to grab a couple of vacuum bags from a seedy motel. Hopefully, there is material from someone that is in the system for similar crimes that will divert attention from you. ;)

[fluoroantimonic]

That is a good idea. I like it. I can't see why that wouldn't work as long as you were smart about it.

[Cobalt.45]

Hopefully, there is material from someone that is in the system for similar crimes that will divert attention from you. ;)I like! The idea of incriminating someone on purpose crossed my mind, but this way the person would be randomly selected by chance w/no ties to you at all. :cool:

[festergrump]

Hehe, and in a country totally consumed with databasing everything and everyone (the UK, for example, for now) the "leads" would be almost impossible to follow up on entirely.

This sort of thing interests me much more than what to do on the off chance I might have to dispose of a corpse... using their own systems to befuddle them! :D A righteously heinous method to prove the shortcomings of their oppressive ways!

[James]

I was reading an article on composting elsewhere which suggested adding fresh compost to your new clippings. I was thinking it might be usefull to have a wort? of useful microorganism on hand to help kickstart the decomposition process, and maybe take that chicken and hang it out the day before you bump the guy off and hang it out in the boonies/woods/swamp. The aroma of the chicken should help draw scavenging beasts and insects to the location to 'clean up' after you. Also I think they might notice if you overdo it on the scene cluttering, one should try to prevent scenes from being found.

[Intrinsic]

If you are considering composting the body, you could try vermicomposting (using worms to significantly speed up the composting process). I have seen these little buggers at work, and they will eat through most any organic matter in a couple weeks. I believe they can eat their body weight every day, so in a large bin with 10k worms (they're very small) it should be fairly quick to break down a body. I don't think they would eat the bones or teeth, but would eat everything else on the body.

[Hirudinea]

If you are considering composting the body, you could try vermicomposting (using worms to significantly speed up the composting process). I have seen these little buggers at work, and they will eat through most any organic matter in a couple weeks. I believe they can eat their body weight every day, so in a large bin with 10k worms (they're very small) it should be fairly quick to break down a body.

I thought of usinging vermiculture to dispose of a body, but when I looked it up it seems they don't like meat, damn little vegetarian bastards! One good way of getting rid of a body (flesh anyway) would be to use the flesh eating bettles (sp) used in museums to deflesh specimans, but the only problem is that the process stinks like hell, so if you have neighbours, forget it. One thing I was thinking so, seeing people talking about how wet bodies are, of "mummifing" the body, basicly you would fill a large freezer or box, half full with road salt (cheapest dehydrator you can get, not suspicious in northern climes) place the body, naked, inside, slit the belly open, fill full of salt, crack the head open with a pick axe, cover the body with the rest of your salt, and wait about a month or two for full desication, then remove the, hopefully, mummified body, cut it into pieces (much easier now that its the consistency of beef jerky), encase the pieces in concrete, which won't float because there will be very little bacterial activity in the pieces of the corpse, and then dump the blocks and the "used" salt into a large body or bodies of water, and then get rid of the box by burning (or clean the freezer and anonymously donate it to goodwill.) And if it you get caught, well at least you'll be headline news!

[shady mutha]

I quite like the old favourite of making the target dig his own grave.

Another method I saw in the news was putting the target in a car and burning it at a remote location or throwing the corpse into the boot and rolling the car into a river.

[JouMasep]

I am now of a better understanding how come so many murderers are caught. People just don’t think things through and get nailed as a result.

Many a convicted / condemned murder must have done the retrospective “what the hell was I thinking?” bit.

Whilst some ideas here are very creative and (depending on the execution) workable, others plainly depend on luck –which is insane if you think about it.

The higher the stakes, the more important it is that factors such as luck or coincidence are eliminated. You can’t get higher stakes than your own freedom –or your own neck for that matter.

It seems that some here wish to marry their hobbies with what should be considered as a most serious business –viz. to make a certain corpse vanish without the least chance of any links (trace or otherwise) to oneself.

But if joyriding in boats, pyrotechnical feats with thermite, setting off explosives are one’s hobbies, one should understand that these may become commonplace to only oneself –for the rest of the world they draw attention. Compounding the illegal nature of this stuff is that we have to move the corpse to at least a semi-remote area. Driving alone in such places may and will attract the attention of authorities. (Believe me it does, especially after nightfall). We don’t want a corpse in the back at such instance. How realistic is the expectation that one will not be observed if the population density is relatively high in a given case?

If you feel that lucky, why insure your house plus contents, your car or your life in the first place?

B.T.W it bears repeating: thermite’s caloric value per unit mass sucks big time. Also even if you were to mix it in a ratio of say- five to one there would be a problem. The water in the tissue would boil off, creating an isolating layer of steam, protecting the glutes or brain tissue from charring right through. An awful waste of some 300 kg! thermite with dubious results.

I don’t want to say that no hobby could be of use; but perhaps it were better to realize the purpose first (remove corpus delicti) and then to pick a suitable pastime –not vice versa.

Perhaps take up iron casting. A small cupola furnace could make a several corpses disappear in a day. Due to the high exhaust temperatures no abnormal smell would be evident. Due to fusing with the mix of other materials added, nothing that should worry you will remain. In the vein of the good idea above to obfuscate some very ambitious forensic whiz, one could add some dead dogs and cats. Let them sort it out –even if you are the sole suspect (and sole heir as well!)

Prior to dividing the mortal remains of the rich testator into handy vacuum packed lumps, one would drain all blood by sucking with a wet-and-dry vacuum cleaner. This item would also disappear into the furnace. The copper will screw up your iron –perhaps still good for some decorative doorstops.

Let’s look at such a method in terms of pro’s and con’s; this may bring focus on some of the general priorities.

Pro’s: no need to move the body, with added risk to be caught in transit, or schlepping from vehicle to final destination, or execution of disposal method. If carefully executed, you’ll get a total elimination of any remains useful to forensics. It’s not obviously criminal in nature. Conversion from undesirably alive piece of crap to furnace slag is attained within hours. No processes that take weeks to implement.

Con’s: a lot of work and quite a bit of equipment required, needs a minimum degree of metal casting expertise, disposal takes a few hours. A possibility of interference by nosey neighbours, and subsequently authorities who may stop you from backyard casting. Thus stopping you from implementing your cunning plan.

I do not like the latter possibility, but it is something that one has control over. By regularly doing a burn, (sans bodily remains) in advance, the neighbourhood becomes accustomed and one is able to gauge the general reactions.

The weakest link, viz. interference by neighbours should be carefully assessed –once this poses no real risk, the rest can be executed with confidence.

You should have control over access to your own premises anyway, but always cater for the chance that somebody may jump over the fence to check out that interesting hobby of yours: what will they see? Fuel and scrap metal such as tin cans? That’ll be quite in order.

The workup needs to be done with the utmost care. One drop of blood may hang you. I like the idea of flooding the cutting area with extraneous DNA. Still minimize any blood spillage whatsoever. Remove, seal or cover absorbent surfaces prior to cutting. Use a strong DNA denaturing agent and wash copiously afterwards. Be disciplined; don’t cut corners especially when it comes to blood and fibres.

The execution of a scheme as set out is an extreme test to one’s own resolve to do a thing well. If done properly, it will be a victory over the piggies and the establishment –by all reasons they know you did it, but they can’t find a shred of proof.

Afterwards, as earlier said here, don’t fret. Look at it as a practical deed that needed doing –forgive yourself. Only the greatest idiots first murder and than find that perhaps they shouldn’t have.

The ending of a fellow human beings life is the ultimate deed, if you have qualms, you should think of another way.

It helps of course if reasonably the victim is not truly of your own species. The justifiable kill of a cockroach is just that, and should not interfere with one’s healthy appetite.

No I did not suggest also to eat the victim –that is disgusting. What if he’s a smoker? Or a boozer with a liver chirosis to the size of a basketball? No amount of fava beans with chianti will make that taste well. Worst of worst: you are munching big hamburgers for a week now, then you find that he had some kind of a big cancerous growth on his pancreas… . Bluugh!

Fat lot of good did eating do Dahmer anyway –there you go: mixing one’s hobby with what should be serious business.

[chembio]

Maybe before doing the dirty work, the room could be covered entirely in something like cling-wrap?

Then, peel it off once you're done, and wrap up whatever is in the center of the room using the cling-wrap.

What you do with the (probably) big lump of cling-wrap is then up to you :P

[megalomania]

Good idea Dexter... Did your dark passenger suggest that?

[Jacks Complete]

Cling wrap would be utterly useless. At one foot wide per strip, you'd have 12 seams that would all leak a little when you walked over the carpet. That would leave more than enough blood behind - it's a liquid, and it will pool!

Composting meat? Read up on composting - you add even a small bit of meat, and the world knows it, it stinks!

As for running a body through a smal smelter, well, I can see that just about working, but you'll not get the clean burn you are imagining at all. It will smoke and stink, and be very obvious that you aren't doing the same as you did last week to those old tin cans. Plus, I doubt you'd get a body through in a day. It takes a long time to burn down something the size of a chicken carcass, and that is mostly air and light bones. Try using a blowtorch on a hunk of pork, and you will see what I mean.

Personally, take the body offshore in a rowboat, wrap it in chicken wire with a few bricks and let it sink. It'll never come back up, and the odds against it being found, even by divers looking in the roughly right area is pretty close to zero. This is what the Krays used to do. And you don't really care where you ditch it, as long as there is a sandy bottom (if you want to ensure the shrimp eat it fast) so don't keep notes. Just row for an hour or whatever, tip it, then head back after a while. The currents will ensure that even you don't know where whatever allegedly happened happened - just in case of a lie detector.

The other option, which I'm sure someone will have mentioned, is stick them under a corpse in the graveyard. Bury them 7 feet under.

[JouMasep]

As for running a body through a smal smelter, well, I can see that just about working, but you'll not get the clean burn you are imagining at all. It will smoke and stink, and be very obvious that you aren't doing the same as you did last week to those old tin cans. Plus, I doubt you'd get a body through in a day. It takes a long time to burn down something the size of a chicken carcass, and that is mostly air and light bones. Try using a blowtorch on a hunk of pork, and you will see what I mean.

We’ll have to disagree there; you completely overestimate the amount of heat required to turn to ashes a body -in relation to the total amount of heat produced during a day’s burn in a cupola furnace. From the blowtorch analogy I also glean that you loose sight of the very high temperatures involved. Such high temperatures will not allow for odours.

Furthermore, the oxidizing / reducing nature of the process is controlled by the ratio of cokes –or charcoal- feed to the amount of blown air. (Vacuum cleaner) The rate of iron melting and reduction of the iron oxides, i.e the rate of iron production is determined by the combination of the above two factors (plus quantity of scrap etc.). A reducing burn will: produce a bit less heat, much graphite in the iron, a possibly smokey exhaust. An overly oxidising burn will have the opposite effect –to a point of course; Blowing excessive air will also cool the burn. But that would take perhaps more blown air than your vacuum cleaner(s) could produce. You’ll just go through your cokes at a crazy rate. (Which is in the case at hand perhaps what you’d want in the first place)
Hence, when faced with “additional” matter to be heated and oxidised, all one has to is:
2.1) increase the total rate of fuel feed.
2.2) increase the relative amount of air marginally.

Both these latter factors are totally within control as explained.

Also the chicken, pork vs. torch analogy is misplaced. Firstly I disagree about the “air in a chicken” If you buy 2 Kg of chicken, you buy just that, “chicken mass” –not air. The fact that the guts have been removed, or hollow chicken bones, have nothing to do with the matter whatsoever. (Except for decreasing the total mass, but as we speak about an undefined mass of chicken, even that is irrelevant in the argument). Secondly, I agree that putting such a chicken on an open slab and firing it with a c.a. 5Kw blowtorch would be a bad way of making it disappear, likewise so with any other barbeque material.

But just as a blowtorch –however big- is bad for turning a chicken to ash, so would it be useless for making iron. It would be incapable of producing a single fraction of a gram. You don’t even have to try that, as you know it already.

A blowtorch burns, an iron-smelting cupola furnace burns also, for the rest they have little in common.

Let us look at in quantitative terms, kindly consider the following:

Mass of body: 75Kg; mass of water therein: 48.75 kg. The dry mass of meat, fat and bones is taken to be “neutral” in caloric value, even if in real life it will be positive, i.e. on burning it will be exothermic.

‘Remains to be converted to steam: 48.75 kg of water.

Calculation for quantity of cokes required:

Amount of K.J (when non-frozen, temp 20 degrees C) required:
(48.75 x 80 x 4.2 ) + (48.75 x 2260) = 126,555 K.J
This brings the water to steam of 100 degrees.
We also add the heat required to heat the steam of 100 degrees, to that of the approximate exhaust temperature –say around 850 degrees.
48.75 x 2 x 750 = 73,125 K,J
Total amount of heat required: 199,600 –which is a nice number; easy to remember for the future: body 75Kg corpse / heat 200 Meg.Joule. (Just in case anyone may need it in future.)

Combustion energy of cokes is: 28 000 K.J per Kg.

Hence to burn one’s mother in law one would require a mere:
200 000 / 28,000 = 7.14 kg of cokes.

But even if you don’t trust my constants, my logic, or my maths you instinctively know that this about right. (These figures are “ideal”, in practice we could well add another 20% to be closer to the real values and cater for loss due to radiation and excessive heating of both the air and resulting steam due our particular requirements.)

So if we were to feed our furnace as per normal, but in addition also some 80 (uh..) half chicken-sized pieces of corpse, plus the commensurate lumps of cokes, over a period of 8 hours -we would ask our furnace to deal with a rate of c.a. 7.5 kg of meat, bone and fat per hour.

This should not materially impinge on the regular total burn that is a good multiple of that extra 8,5 kg cokes. (Say 100-odd kg, depending on size). It would deal with it easy enough and all would not seem much different whatsoever.

At any rate, I am sure that in practice one would be apprehensive and use quite a bit more than the calculated extra amount of fuel. That may be the most significant difference to one’s neighbour: “hey he’s burning it harder today”. With experience, one could become more conservative, and still be safe.

Most importantly, at the centre of the burn, the temperatures exceed 1480 degrees, but at the exhaust (especially if we blow it hard, the temperatures will still be very, very high –plenty high enough to totally eliminate any unnatural odours. (Such odours simply cannot conceivably survive the temperatures and contact periods involved –period.)

If you were to simply aim to actually produce iron, which would still be well feasible –even if not running to perfection, it would be almost impossible to screw the undetected vanishing of one’s m.i.l. up. As long as one would not be so thick as to dump too much at a time. ‘Rate of 7,5 kg/hr meat is way low anyway i.m.o, but it still leaves room for another corpse in a hard day’s work, if need be…

Regarding the graveyard solution: it has been done often before in movies, they did not get away with it then. It may have been done successfully that way in real life. But it is very risky to me. I have stated my idea about risk in matters such as this.

When would one do it? During the day? Hardly. So it would be at night –better, but what if you are unlucky? All kinds of folks roam around at night, also around graveyards.
It would be inconvenient to bump into some thrill-seeking individuals, having a beer or intimacy at the graveyard. I mean, how do you explain that corpse over your shoulder? And even if you get away, chances are that you’d have to drop it.

Now, one could of course disguise oneself -with a mask for instance. (Kindly make suggestions as to the theme of masks that could apply.)

But altogether ‘tis riskier than even remote burial –even if it’s more fun. (Did you hear those deviant Goth fuckers scream as they ran for their lives?) It may appeal to the ghoul in oneself: schlepping with a corpse in the graveyard at night. On Halloween perhaps? But it ain’t safe to me. The odds may be only 1 to 100 that you will be caught. (Can you see yourself doing this 100 times and getting away trouble-free with it every single time?) For me, I would not dare to even think of a figure of 1 to 20 in the graveyards that I know.

Totally unacceptable, regarding the stakes methinks.

On the upside, with the masks, the hoods and the capes, one’s defence lawyer may think you have an excellent shot at an insanity plea…….

[Cobalt.45]

"Tis the season to be transporting your dead bodies. Think elaborate costume party- "Yea, officer, they're giving away a bottle of Jack for the best costume"- could be an excuse for why you happen to be covered in blood and have a corpse in the back seat of the car!

Yes, I jest:D.

The furnace for smelting iron is all well and good- IF the situation just happens to be perfect for such a back yard op.

But because many don't have BY's and others are limited as to the industrialization of their neighborhoods their respective neighbors will tolerate (codes against commercial and/or non-residential use of "R"-zoned property), the utilization will be limited.

But the idea as presented would be good for those who can use it.

[Telkor]

A saturated solution of washing powder can easily dissolve organic material, only the bones will remain. But this will take some time.

One way commonly used by the mafia is calcium oxide. Works much better than Ca(OH)2.
It will draw all water from the body, turn basic, and dissolve it in a couple of weeks.

That's probably the worst case for a coroner.

[Alexires]

Worst case for the murderer you mean. Having to keep the body around for WEEKS and then get rid of the bones afterwards.

But then again. Better than burying it, I suppose....

[sbovisjb1]

I have come to the conclusion that abducting the victim, taking him to a secluded location, drain his blood using a metal tube, faucet etc and dumping his/her body in a ice cold well, freezer etc for a few years (better to find a natural method,cave, icy water as a refrigerated unit could draw suspicion) Now that all the blood are in a container, get blood (read above washroom idea :/) mix it in to disguise it and goto a lake or hell even a public toilet and dump it in. In a few years (3-4) take the body and bury it somewhere, either in pieces, or just dump it. When they try to an autopsy, it will be difficult to determine the time of death and even who it was.

[iHME]

The only problem is that you would have to move the body. And there would be a body to be found for years.
And what would happen if some one stumbled across the body by accident?

I'd say that the destruction of the body in the least time possible should be the priority.
And securing a proper alibi would also help.
Because if the pigs are concentration on ones alibi some important stuff that one has forgotten could be destroyed by time before the pigs turn their interest to them.

[JouMasep]

sbovisjb1’s otherwise quite problematic methodology here, points to the fact that he fears blood spillage at the murder scene.

This is a salient point. Whilst it may be well possible to completely destroy any DNA evidence, to make blood unrecognizable as being of human origin is less easy, but in order to pass a Luminol test –well forget about it. If you spilled blood, you won’t make it disappear to a Luminol test, unless all is drenched in concentrated acids, mixed or not with strong oxidisers. Bleach certainly does not work; I don’t quite know about an acidified, neutral-ish strong solution of chlorine. (Acidified HTH powder)

So, if there’s any likelihood that the scene will be investigated, spill no blood. No ballpein hammers, axes, baseball bats or any other such stuff.

Rather go for: HCN sprayed directly into the face, any oral quick acting oral poison (if this can be administered), hollow arrows, darts, syringes with quick acting poisons or a heart-shot at close range, with a suppressed small pistol / reduced load. Or any other such quick and bloodless kill. Strangling is OK too, but be careful of having one’s face full of scratches.

For the rest, the scheme to first abduct one’s prey may have the advantage to at least minimize the charges from 1st degree murder to kidnapping, should one be stopped before arrival at the envisaged location of the murder proper. (“You were going a bit fast sir / your taillight is not working –why are you so nervous sir? Please step out of the car and open your trunk. Or: somebody rear-ends you and your trunk lid flies open)

But this only lessens the charges. Kidnapping –especially in the US carries very heavy penalties, more so if reason exists to believe that murder was the final objective. If transport of a body (dead / alive) is deemed a risk, don’t transport it in the first place.

The idea to “store it in a remote ice cold well or freezer” (Why –to preserve if for eventual discovery?) and to subsequently dump some four litres of blood into a public toilet is “not very well thought out” to say the least.

Walk into the place and pour all of the semi congealed stuff into a toilet bowl? You’ll be very careful not to spill a drop then. But unfortunately there was this guy who was reeealy in a hurry because he was bursting, ‘rushes past you and knocks the container out of your hands. ‘All over the washroom’s floor of course.

Now how do you talk yourself out of that?

I'd say that the destruction of the body in the least time possible should be the priority. Precisely! Minimise the time frame for discovery. On a missing person’s report, only rarely is an in-depth and wide body search conducted within the first 48 hours.

And by “destruction” we mean ideally: even if they do find it, and the remains of said destruction are in the hands of the cops / prosecution, they will still not have enough for a conviction. There is no link to any disappeared person whatsoever; not only that, it is doubtful even if it’s human at all!

To me, only incineration and total chemical dissolution meet these criteria. If chemical dissolution is not effected within a few days at most, an alternative may have to be sought. Total chemical dissolution, at a rapid rate (rate decreases as dilution occurs) requires a vast amounts of chemicals. These need to be transported, stored and disposed of. Chemical treatment of bodily remains has been dome before. Every forensic investigator knows about Dahmer. Large chemical containers are suspect in connotation with a missing person.

I find burning to ashes still the optimal method, and if some other species such as dead dogs are added to the burn, the distribution of trace elements will not even point to “human” conclusively. (‘Could throw in a judicial teaspoon of mixture of elements in burn as well of course)

I concur that not all have the facilities for a full fledged iron producing furnace. But, just as there is no such thing as a “perfect murder”, likewise does an “easy and quick, risk-free method of disposal” not exist.

If you have little means or facilities, a near-perfect murder and total disappearing of a body may not be within your reach. E.g. as per example above: if you really have to transport a body, don’t do it in a piece of junk. Use a car in excellent state of repair, with cruise control –and use that.

Back to burning; I reckon I have an idea for a device that can be almost used indoors. It could be use e.g. in one’s garage, with the door open.

It would be an adaptation of something I have already, namely a non-ferrous metal smelting furnace. (Although it completely melted a 4,2 mm wall stainless steel pot when I tried to see how hot it could go)

This I propose: a general gas fired furnace with an exhaust adapter to treat the effluent gasses for odours.

Construction
A furnace made of castable refractory material (1600 C) ID: 450 mm , internal height: 675mm, wall thickness c.a. 100 mm.
At the inside-bottom a steel pipe (stainless is better) of c.a. 38 mm diameter is inserted in tangential (non-radial!) direction respective to the bottom circular surface.
The pipe is connected to a centrifugal type of blower. (Can use one or more hairdryers, for short term only), the flow-rate is controlled by a baffle inserted into a slot cut across the pipe. Between the baffle and the entrance into the furnace wall a thin-diameter (6 or 8 mm) metal tube is inserted into a hole in the pipe. The thin tube is sealed at the end and near this end a small (say 1,5 mm hole is radially drilled –this is the hole where the fuel gas is introduced)

Now for the lid.
A flat lid, (or better conical, or hemispherical) has a hole of c.a. 100 mm diameter. For the adaptation for cremation on this lid is placed a short “chimney” of 140 mm diameter and 350 mm height. At the bottom a tube is inserted (38 mm), also tangentially, also equipped with hairdryer, baffle and gas injector. The chimney may have a lid on top with a hole of 120 mm diameter.

The lid-chimney assembly needs to be suspended from some kind of “crane” mechanism.

On the inside of the furnace, at the bottom, a grid of welded 12 or 10 mm bar is placed. This is where the body parts are placed.

Both the gas injector tubes are connected to a gas supply with rubber gas hose and hose clamps. The gas supply is fitted with a regulator valve and two individual flow adjustment valves. It is probable that you’ll need to use a manifold and two gas bottles simultaneously due to the fact that a single bottle would freeze up due to the rate of evaporation.

Operation:
First only fire bottom burner, furnace empty. Attune gas-flow and airflow so that a proper burn continues. At first it won’t burn very well, but as the walls reach operating temperature, it will start to hum. (literally).

Place plastic-sealed chunks of two-timing gay lover onto grid. (Re)start top burner. Throw in burning cardboard in bottom. Close lid.
Start bottom blower and gas.

Adjust blowers / gas for optimal combustion of gas and effluent.

Theory:
By fully re-heating the exhaust, any chance escaping of odorous fumes is eliminated.
Whilst it may be well possible to operate without a post-burner and to adjust the bottom burner / blower for a highly oxidising burn, taking care of virtually all odours, I feel that this would necessitate the burning of only smaller pieces at one time. The introduction of a post processing burner will allow for higher rated of body–processing. If somebody could think of some clever catalytic converter, that will be very nice of course -and save gas in the process.

Notes:
-On starting, only ever first turn on blower, then gas –otherwise: BANG
-I proposed a cylindrical chimney here. Naturally this is not the ideal shape. Taking into the equation the various optimal flow rates and pressures in relation to the chimney’s in and out-flow, and also the introduction of the air / gas mixture, we would likely be better of with a two-cone shape. (Cone shapes: one inverted, one upright and the bases joined halfway
Do not get caught with empty gas bottles halfway. Count on 18 to 27 kg of gas needed for starters. You’ll probably only need 15 for a fairly large corpse, experience will teach you the precise amount.

Also, the cutting needs to be done inside some large plastic vessel –to be destroyed afterwards. I propose that the blood-sucking with the wet-or-dry vacuum cleaner –see earlier post- is also done inside the said vessel
I reckon that a heat-sealed reinforced PVC material “Box” shaped into a rectangular form and supported by a tube or rod framework would be suitable. (Think inverted box-tent)

It seems a lot of work.

But a murder should be done only as a last resort anyway, not frivolously. In most cases one’s problems should be solved by creative alternatives. (Purely my own opinion of course.)

So if killing for fun is one’s game, this would probably not appeal. Too much work for the fun. So, then cut it up, put it in a suitcase and try to flush it down in your local public toilet. Note: this advice may end you up in trouble –but the public will relish another gruesome tale of a serial shit’s exploits and how he was sent to lethal injection. You’ll be famous and your smirking face will appear in magazines the world over.

[Cobalt.45]

If one were to be determined to dress the kill to facilitate the burning, dissolving, flushing, etc., I seem to remember those plastic wading pools for toddlers. The plastic is thick enough to withstand some errant jabs, yet is light enough that it (the pool) can be transported via auto, folded into the trunk or back seat.

The pool would be some better, IMHO, than trying to do it in a bathroom tub. Guy needs some freaking elbow room when doing such chores!:D

[sbovisjb1]

If you spilled blood, you won’t make it disappear to a Luminol test, unless all is drenched in concentrated acids, mixed or not with strong oxidisers. Bleach certainly does not work...


Luminol also fluoresces in the presence of copper or an alloy of copper, horseradish, and certain bleaches; and, as a result, if a crime scene is thoroughly cleaned with a bleach solution, residual bleach will cause the entire crime scene to fluoresce, effectively camouflaging any organic evidence, such as blood.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminol#Drawbacks

Point being certain bleaches do emit luminescence under the same circumstances as blood does. ;)

Edit: Love the name JouMasep.

[Hirudinea]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminol#Drawbacks

Point being certain bleaches do emit luminescence under the same circumstances as blood does. ;)

You beat me to it, I was going to suggest the same thing, literally paint the room with bleach, or somthing else that would trigger luminol and the test will be useless.

[JouMasep]

True, but Luminol is a crude and quick test anyway. It does not in any way offer evidence that will convict.
But it surely will stir our dear boys in blue to get the forensic chaps to redouble their efforts.
Not that spring-cleaning with bleach is illegal of course, but even heavily denatured DNA-from-blood on the walls and ceilings will look bad.

About the name: most plebeian and disrespectful; I want to change it to “Dweez_123” or “Dark Knight” –much better, no?

[Alexires]

Otherwise paint the room in pig blood, shit and copper sulphate.

Or, you could paint the room in Copper Sulphate and lime. Apparently that is used to control fungus on berries (ref (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_sulfate#As_an_herbicide.2C_fungicide.2C_pes ticide))

[JouMasep]

They also used same broth on infested vineyards.
Hence the (translated from Dutch) name Bordeaux Porridge. (Lame translation but the original alliteration worked better)

Throwing this stuff around your bedroom (after you went to work with golf clubs on the cheating couple) creates a nice plausible deniability indeed: “Oh that fluorescent stuff on my walls looks fantastic –never thought that killing that irritant fungus could look so good detective”

This would seem also preferable to our fellow Muslim murderers, or those who object to crap on the bedroom walls and ceilings.

[sbovisjb1]

I have heard that burying a corpse in sand (if you live in a area where such things are common) , or cutting it open and packing it with salt to dry it out makes it much easier to burn/cut up and dispose of afterwords.

[Alexires]

Yeah, that is sort of like the process for mummification. The only problem is that you have to wait around for the body to dry, and that waiting will be the "killer".:p