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[GUIDE] Corpse Disposal, a brief how-to.


AM

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Corpse Disposal, a brief how-to.


After having returned from a long-ish hiatus, and now that we have actual corpses lying about from shoot-outs and murders, I figured it'd be time to write up a somewhat in depth guide to the processes of illegal corpse disposal that are used by criminals. After all, disposal of evidence is pretty damn important, and in my opinion, can be fun RP in how it's done. Corpse disposal is, on the surface, simple. Chuck a corpse into a river or slice it up and bury it. However, the majority of methods of corpse disposal are inevitably going to leave a trace or remnant of forensic evidence.

 

This guide is being made with the intent of informing people on an OOC level primarily, because well - there's a decent chunk of just basic misinformation about how certain corpse disposal methods actually play out, mainly just due to ill-fact checked crime fiction and myths surrounding actual true crime.

 

An explanation of corpse disposal methods!:

  1. Disposal of evidence via water. Now, this is entirely assuming you've already gone through the process of actually taking the corpse and placing it in your vehicle. This is simple, after all. Take the body, strip it down, take any potential identifying markers such as the driver's licence, etc, etc. Place the corpse in a flowing body of water, and voila. The main problem here is that ultimately, that corpse will be spotted. The majority of the time, a corpse, when sent through a flowing body of water, will inevitably get caught up in some manner of debris, or a Dam, or will be spotted by a passer-by. The water will damage the corpse, and depending on how long it takes for the body to ultimately be found, it maybe beyond recognition. But, it's merely delaying the inevitable. Attaching some manner of concrete to a corpse to try and sink it is viable too - but, that is a far more difficult method, and counteracts the main reason why you throw a body in water. Ease. 
  2. Burial. Burial is a particularly varied method. After all, you can stuff a corpse beneath your floorboards and bury it beneath your own home, akin to serial killers like Dennis Nilsen or Gacy. You could also dig your own grave in some isolated area, but once again, consider ease of use here. Digging a 6-foot deep grave is hard work, and the disturbance of fresh dirt would be very much noticeable by a search party, for instance. A method that would elude sniffer dogs would be to dig up a fresh grave, place the corpse atop or beneath the coffin, and replace the dirt. But once again, ease of use. Dragging a corpse into a cemetery at night is noticeable. 
  3. Dismemberment. A cumbersome method, mainly because you need a spot to do it in. Assuming you've gone through the process of killing somebody, taking their corpse, and taking it to an isolated location you have within your own control, you'd have to go through the process of keeping a clean room to slice up the body. And once again, it's hard work. A human corpse requires plenty of work to actually be dismembered, referring back to Dennis Nilsen again - it required him to be black-out drunk half the time, and took almost hours worth of cutting to be able to slice up the body. This is not taking into account viscera, guts, internal organs, etc, etc. However, if done properly, a dismembered corpse is far harder to identify, and can be easily scattered amongst dumpsters, alleys, isolated areas, or even buried. This method entirely relies upon having a safe, controlled environment for the process. Which isn't so easily guaranteed.
  4. Flame. Burning a corpse without an industrial furnace is not viable. Unless you have access to your own crematorium, you'll be using an open fire. The problem with this being that you have no control over the fumes, a burning corpse will release a recognizable stench, and that ultimately, you do not have the ability to destroy the teeth. According to this here study, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4142410/, it would take up to 600 degrees Celsius to actually be able to destroy any trace of the victim's dental records. Ultimately, the use of open flame as a method of corpse disposal will only further mutilate the victim, and unless you have hand-removed the teeth yourself, is ultimately pointless.
  5. Acid. This is somewhat of a blanket term, here I'm using acid to refer to any use of chemical agents to help dispose of a corpse, also including lye. Sodium or potassium hydroxide. Using lye primarily here, it requires that you heat it up to 300 degrees Celsius. When heated to 300, the body when placed into a vat of lye will turn into a tan-ish liquid in only three hours. However, considering you're only probably going to be able to heat the lye solution to around the boiling point of water, add another hour or two. Water is preferably mixed in with the lye to ease the consistency of the corpse remains after, meaning you can easily flush it down a toilet or run it down a sink. But it's not perfect. Bone shadows remain, calcified bone. These can be easily disposed of however, and in industrial corpse disposal, are more often than not turned into a fine white powder. Lye is imperfect, but a more common method. This is primarily because lye's cousin, acid, is far more dangerous to be working with. Sulphuric acid for example was used by the serial killer John George Haigh in the 40's primarily because acid can dissolve even bone and teeth to nothing - processing corpses via 45 gallon drums over the course of two days to fully dissolve the bodies. Lye is far more easy to get ahold of - purchasable from your average farmer's market, or some (heavily diluted lye) in the form of drain cleaner. Acids used to dispose of corpses are generally controlled substances, buying in bulk is more difficult due to their use in bomb-making, unless you're entirely willing to harvest acid out of car batteries all day.
  6. Pigs. Pigs as a method of corpse disposal has been popularised in pop culture as of late. The serial killer Pickton used pigs on his own farm to dispose of the bodies of his victims. A pig can eat and digest a corpse incredibly effectively, presuming you've stripped the victim of their clothing. Of course, this is limited. I doubt your average murderer will have access to a pig farm. But, it's a method to keep in mind. 

 

Decomposition stages of a corpse.:

Another thing to take in mind here is going be the decomposition of a dead body. A case I'll take from here is the murder of Travis Alexander, who was stabbed twenty seven times, had his throat slit, and then was shot in the head. His corpse was left in water for five days, in an enclosed and humid shower. Now, due to this, the corpse was essentially useless. The body had decomposed to the point where the cause of death was particularly difficult to determine, and the corpse had been cleaned of any blood. 

 

Any self-proclaimed corpse cleaner will know that, at times, all they can do is delay the finding of a corpse. The larger the delay, the better. After all, it means less evidence can be gleamed by a coroner. And, the decomposition of a corpse has four or five stages, depending on who you ask.

 

The first is Autolysis. Autolysis, also known as self-digestion, begins the second the body dies. The cells within the body are eaten by released enzymes from exploded membranes, and rigor mortis sets in. Blisters appear on internal organs and on the skin, and the body's skin gains a slight sheen.

 

The second is bloat. Gases from the first stage appear, and you now have a situation in which the body can bloat up to double the original size. At this point, insects begin feasting on the corpse. Rather importantly - coroners are very much able to determine the potential time of death depending on what type of insects are eating and nesting within the body, and whether or not any larvae or eggs are being hatched within. Putrefaction happens now, the death stench. A potent way of letting any passer-by know of the presence of a dead body.

 

The third is Active Decay. The organs and muscle and tissue all begin to liquefy. Mass is lost by the dead body, and hair, cartilage, and other excess byproducts follow.

 

The last I will cover is Skeletonization. Now, there's no real timeline for this. It's entirely dependent on how long Active Decay takes, which varies on the amount of mass the corpse has.

 

Here is a brief timeline - 

24 - 72 hours after death, internal organ decomposition begins.

3-5 days after, bloat begins and bloody foam leaks from the mouth and nose.

8-10 days after, the corpse turns from green to red as blood decomposes and gas gathers in the abdomen.

Several weeks, teeth and nails fall out.

1 month after death. liquefication takes place.

 

Speeding up decomposition is pretty easy. Placing the corpse in a humid or moist area will help, especially if there are insects or scavenger animals close by.

 

Corpse Disposal, and the psychological toll.:

Having given a slight bit of an idea of a few, and I only really mean a few, corpse disposal methods, I'd like to mention the hefty psychological toll inflicted on the perpetrator here. Referring back to my examples of serial killers, they more often than not - despised the act of disposal. Nilsen for example, did have to drink copious amounts of alcohol in order to cope with what he was doing, and vomited time and time again whilst boiling the flesh off of his victims to be piled in garbage bags and burned. Same with Jeffery Dahmer, so and so forth. To dispose of a corpse is to entirely dehumanise the victim, and ultimately, is a traumatic experience no matter which way you slice it. To ignore the toll on the mind would be troublesome, and ignoring some potentially great RP that could come from having to cope from disposing of a corpse. It is a slow, arduous process - and if you're doing it alone, you're left alone with nothing but your thoughts and a dead body.

 

Corpse Disposal, and IC knowledge.:

Not everyone is going to know how to heat lye to the right temperature to melt a dead body. Not everyone will know where a human corpse's joints are best cut through to be able to easily dismember a body. First hand experience in corpse disposal is probably rare, in the majority of killings on server - there's a good chance you just left the body there. However, this sort of knowledge - surface level stuff taken from case studies and true crime, is easy to come by. Any character who has premeditated a murder and wanted to get rid of the body after the fact, could easily research this and prepare for the process.

 

Corpse Disposal, and development:

A core idea I wanted to mention is the idea of corpse disposal RP and how that can further a character's development. Whether that be them now having to discover a new coping mechanism from the trauma of the act, to them becoming skilled, proficient, and disconnected from the nature of the acts they're committing. I personally have RP'd it in the past as the idea of something awful, disgusting, violent. That, with time and practice, turned into something distasteful, to something that was nothing more than a chore, and then ultimately - something to take pride in. But that was unique to that character, and ultimately, illegal (or misfortunate legal characters) can derive something from this tiny little niche of RP in my opinion.

 

Presuming it's a character's first time disposing of a corpse, it's going to be messy. It's going to be deeply transformative, and it'll leave a lasting mark for the better or for the worse. It's a skill to hone like any other, and if they fall into a habit of having to get rid of bodies, it's only inevitable that they'll get better at it - knowing where to cut through the ligaments with a saw, knowing what times a cemetery's fresh graves are going to be unattended, knowing what bodies of water and rivers have less traffic, etc, etc.

 

The Act and preparation.:

Preparing for corpse disposal is tricky. The majority of people who dispose of a dead body after a murder, do so because they're also aware that the police would be able to link them and the body through some manner of professional or personal relationship. And to avoid marking themselves as a suspect, preparing for corpse disposal means you must do so without arousing any suspicion within your purchasing history. Going to a hardware store and buying a saw, a hammer, pliers and a set of tarp and plastic wrap isn't subtle. But, over the course of a week or two - you could easily buy those products without arousing much in the way of suspicion in an investigation. You could have a friend buy them in your stead, as well. Keep in mind, the tools you use to dispose of a body are inherently now linked to the commission of a crime, and if you want your hands entirely clean - it is best to know you must dispose of them, as well.

 

Now, I'm presuming here that you've got your body. It's still warm. It's pumped full of bullets, or had the throat slit. You now have a dead body in your trunk. Did you wrap the corpse in a tarp to avoid blood and clothing fibre getting into the boot liner? Do you have a fully secure controlled environment in which to dispose of the body, or are you gambling on the woods or a lazy river? Assuming you've sliced up the body here, are you going to slough the flesh off by boiling it? Separate the bone and flesh to further confuse anyone who discovers it. Or if you're dumping it in water, are you going through the effort to chain it up to concrete so that'll it remain at the bottom, hoping that the rocks and water will damage the body enough by the time someone inevitably finds it? Did you purchase your lye and have it boiling already, or have you taken the risk of dealing with the gallons of acid, paranoid that someone may discover the half-dissolved body in a barrel somewhere. Corpse disposal is a paranoid game, and injecting that into your RP would be neat. In most cases, disposing of a body is not done in the hopes of getting rid of it. It's done in the hopes of delaying the find.

 

Clean-up.:

Clothing, lining, and all matter of objects are going to retain evidence. Throwing a corpse in the back of your car without properly wrapping it up or insulating it while it's still bleeding is only going to mean you now have blood stains in the boot, or worse yet, clothing fibre. Carrying a bloodied corpse? Blood on your clothes. Potentially, you may end up leaving hair on the dead body you're attempting to dispose of. Clean-up is a major component of attempting to remove any evidence linking a murder to you. If you've got a bloodied up trunk liner, go ahead and attempt to replace it with a clean one, and burn the evidence. Same goes for clothing, and any tarp/plastic wrap used in the commission of the crime. At this point of the crime, it's entirely up to the criminals' IC paranoia about being caught. What lengths will they go to in order to prevent themselves being caught, and how much evidence are they willing to attempt to destroy in order to aid them?

 

Trauma Cleaning.:

Trauma Cleaning is essentially, crime scene cleanup. This applies to both legal and illegal characters here, as quite a large number of police departments actually outsource crime scene cleanup to Trauma Cleaning businesses, who specialize in biohazardous environments such as a homicide/assault site. 

 

Assuming you're an illegal character who, for example, has just dismembered a corpse into eight pieces. You've sloughed out the viscera and filled the corpse with rocks. You now have multiple bags of viscera, blood spattered everywhere, and multiple bodyparts, spread out biological matter, and the stench of an opened up corpse to deal with. Taking methods from trauma cleaning services is a great idea in how to deal with this. The first thing is that most trauma cleaners will wear shoe covers, liquid impermeable coveralls, and protective eyewear - cleaning up a human body is a quick way to get a liquid vector based disease. Washing out blood stains is a very well known problem, with more than enough solutions that are easy to find. But, viewing it through the lens of an illegal crime, you're still leaving a trace. Most uses of bleach and homemade blood cleaners will actually damage fabrics if used on clothing, a form of forensic evidence. 

 

For legal characters, a trauma cleaning business is an odd one. Presumably working with a law enforcement department, you're essentially on call to deal with any potential crime scenes. These range from assaults to suicides and homicides. Anything that leaves biohazardous materiel in it's wake, and this extends to any crime scene with drugs. It's actually a rather lucrative business, mainly due to the fact that it requires training, therapy, and a very specific kind of person who is able to do this work. Other trauma cleaning work often revolves around cleaning up hoarders' homes and assessing what will have to be replaced at a crime scene, or for a landlord. It's a potentially niche avenue of RP, but considering it's LS, probably rather busy. There have been attempts to establish universal standards of crime scene cleanup, mainly successful within the UK, but within America - it's very much a freelancer's market.

 

The Concept of the Criminal Cleaner:

Is the idea of a 'cleaner', a criminal who is contracted out by other organizations in order to get rid of dead bodies, real? In short, not really. In reality? Eh. In my research, the idea of a criminal cleaner has always come up in crime fiction, but rarely have they actually appeared in actual crime cases. Now, there are very rare instances of this happening. Some hitmen, such as the Iceman or the various hitmen involved with Murder Inc, or even hitmen found within the Balkan States often disposed of dead bodies as part of a group of contract killers. Cartels have been found to utilize men who are experts in dissolving corpses in acid vats. But, specifically, the idea of a neutral party who comes in to clean up dead bodies is immensely unlikely. This doesn't mean that in theory, you couldn't attempt to RP one. It is likely that a 'cleaner' would have some form of association to a primary criminal organization as opposed to being truly independent.

 

A freelancing, independent criminal cleaner, would be a risk. On behalf of whoever hired them, and for the cleaner themselves. But, with the correct portrayal, it could be possible. The criminal world is a lot more flexible than some may think. But it'd be difficult, and fraught with 24/7 danger and paranoia.

 

A little bit extra.:

I have, by no means, covered every manner of corpse disposal. Mainly the most popular and well-known. There are other methods of course, for instance, the Iceman gained his name by freezing the dead bodies of his victims in an attempt to obscure the time of death (which is determined by measuring the temperature of the liver.) You could mix and match, burning and dismembering a corpse, or dismembering a body and using acid/lye to lighten the load/volume of the barrels you're having to acquire and use.

 

Ultimately, do your own research - I would recommend looking into well-researched true crime. Serial killers do have to dispose of bodies after all, and those who are caught are well-documented. There are articles regarding cartel usage of acid to dispose of corpses. too. I haven't even gone into the process of cleaning up blood stains, or theoretically attempting to deal with evidence such as tyre tread markings and the like. It's a very in-depth process depending how far you want to go into it, and the more research, the better.

 

Hope this may help out a tad with people who may otherwise not know, or at the very least bring some interest to a particular little niche of illegal RP.

Edited by AM
Added decomposition section. Added trauma cleaning/criminal cleaning section.
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