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- Apr 24, 2016
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Hi Sleuthers, hope everyone is having (or had) a nice Saturday.
I saw some discussion a few pages back about the body/physical evidence, and i immediately remembered that last year i read a book by a forensic pathologist that had a few paragraphs discussing the science of burning a body.
I went back to my kindle and i'll be reposting the passages here, however I do want to first say 1) this may, very understandably, not be something ML's friends and family are interested in hearing about right now, so just a heads up and 2) i'm purposely leaving out a few things that i see as...hm...almost tips, for lack of a better term. I know the author did not intend for this as he is just stating facts, and the book is published and free for anyone to read, but I still personally do not feel comfortable putting out information on what works more efficiently to destroy a body through fire. Obviously none of us here are interested in aiding a criminal in concealing/destroying evidence and it would never be my intention to do so.
That being said, I think you may find these passages interesting. The book is called "Dissecting Death: Secrets of a Medical Examiner" by Frederick Zugibe.
"Nonforensic pathologists credit fire with a great deal more destructive power than it actually has, at least at the relatively low temperatures generated by a bonfire"
"..the body does not burn as easily as most people believe. Instead, the body resits the destructive forces of the fire with amazing durability, allowing the pathologist to make determinations from the remains."
These are the most important, IMO:
"It is only at the superhigh temperatures produced inside a crematorium, say, or at a steel smelting plant that fleshy matter is completely reduced to dust"
"what actually happens at such relatively low temperatures--around 1200 degrees F--is that instead of disintegrating, the corpses's flesh roasts much in the manner of, if you will forgive the gruesome analogy, meat on a backyard barbecue...burning flesh...does not destroy it. It cooks it, protects it, and most of all preserves it."
So, this makes me feel a lot better. Some stuff is destroyed of course, but if they had enough to determine the DNA was female, I'm confident they have more evidence than we may think. He got got.
I saw some discussion a few pages back about the body/physical evidence, and i immediately remembered that last year i read a book by a forensic pathologist that had a few paragraphs discussing the science of burning a body.
I went back to my kindle and i'll be reposting the passages here, however I do want to first say 1) this may, very understandably, not be something ML's friends and family are interested in hearing about right now, so just a heads up and 2) i'm purposely leaving out a few things that i see as...hm...almost tips, for lack of a better term. I know the author did not intend for this as he is just stating facts, and the book is published and free for anyone to read, but I still personally do not feel comfortable putting out information on what works more efficiently to destroy a body through fire. Obviously none of us here are interested in aiding a criminal in concealing/destroying evidence and it would never be my intention to do so.
That being said, I think you may find these passages interesting. The book is called "Dissecting Death: Secrets of a Medical Examiner" by Frederick Zugibe.
"Nonforensic pathologists credit fire with a great deal more destructive power than it actually has, at least at the relatively low temperatures generated by a bonfire"
"..the body does not burn as easily as most people believe. Instead, the body resits the destructive forces of the fire with amazing durability, allowing the pathologist to make determinations from the remains."
These are the most important, IMO:
"It is only at the superhigh temperatures produced inside a crematorium, say, or at a steel smelting plant that fleshy matter is completely reduced to dust"
"what actually happens at such relatively low temperatures--around 1200 degrees F--is that instead of disintegrating, the corpses's flesh roasts much in the manner of, if you will forgive the gruesome analogy, meat on a backyard barbecue...burning flesh...does not destroy it. It cooks it, protects it, and most of all preserves it."
So, this makes me feel a lot better. Some stuff is destroyed of course, but if they had enough to determine the DNA was female, I'm confident they have more evidence than we may think. He got got.
It’s amazing how productive I am when the forum goes down! I got cleaning AND gardening stuff done!
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