Listen, we're not going to judge you- what
are we the police... or your parents?- but you've got a body on your hands and a real
pressing need to dispose of it. Maybe you've been engaging in some cloning
shenanigans and discovered that just because you clone a human being, doesn't mean it comes
with a soul. Maybe you've been 'Weekend at Bernies'ing
your dead boss. Whatever your situation, you're gonna have
to get rid of that body pronto before local law enforcement gets all 'questiony' about
the corpse in your basement. So let's work on getting rid of that little
problem of yours. -Bury It-
The phrase “six feet under” exists for a reason, because historically it's been the
best way to dispose of a body without said body pulling a Britney Spears-esque comeback
on you. Real estate and body disposal have two things
in common- location, location, location. You want to make sure that your dead body
isn't going to be turning up anytime soon, and that means burying it in a place nobody
is going to accidentally dig it up, or where it'll draw unnatural attention. You might think you need to go remote, and
you'd typically be right, but sometimes close to home is best. Ever heard of the expression “hide in plain
sight”? Works great for bodies too- especially if
you own the land where the body is going to be hidden. If you happen to be a property owner then
you can pull the same move many serial killers do, and simply bury it on your own property. By doing so you can ensure that no work crews
are going to accidentally stumble upon your corpse, though you'll want to make sure that
you aren't threatened by eviction anytime soon, because once the new owners start finding
corpses all over the backyard you can bet the cops are going to come looking for the
previous owner. Also, just as a word of caution, burying corpses
in your own basement is a super good way to make sure they're never found, but also a
super good way of ensuring that your house is haunted as balls. So, you know, weigh the pros and cons. Other good places to bury a body would be
freshly dug utility ditches such as those used for sewer lines or utilities. Because of the danger of severing vital utility
lines, nobody is going to go digging in that spot anytime soon, just make sure you dig
the minimum six feet. Wherever you dig your disposal hole just make
sure that the body is deep enough that scavengers and sniffer dogs won't go poking around, and
scatter leaves and twigs to make it less obvious that there's a fresh grave in the middle of
otherwise undisturbed wilderness. If you're particularly worried about police
sniffer dogs- and you should be- you can bury a decoy by simply killing an animal and burying
that, with your dead body six feet below it. Of course why go through all that trouble
when you can just reuse an existing grave- or make use of a freshly dug one. It may require careful coordination, but if
you plan your murder around the same time that you know your local cemetery is going
to be digging new graves, then simply bury your victim a few feet past the bottom of
a freshly dug grave. Or maybe visit grandma in the cemetery and
give her a friend to spend eternity with. -Burning-
Burning seems like a foolproof method for dead body disposal, after all we literally
cremate people when we choose to not plant them in the ground for future generations
to deal with. While burning can certainly help dispose of
identifying characteristics and things like DNA, it comes with a rather large set of problems. First, burning a body isn't going to be like
burning garden clippings- burning bodies are going to smell awful, making neighbors very
curious, and give off thick black plumes of smoke, making the fire department even more
curious. So wherever you decide to burn, your backyard
is not going to be a great place for the task. Then there's the actual burning. Human bodies are lousy with water, which means
that a lot of the body isn't going to burn as much burn as just blacken, leaving behind
a husk that is still very much recognizable as a human body. This is why crematoriums burn at a thousand
degrees, it's the only way to ensure that the body is fully cremated into ash- though
this often still leaves behind large chunks of bone which must be ground up. Then there's the teeth, which are designed
by evolution to last for most of your lifetime, making them incredibly tough. At best, burning a body may be a good intermediary
step, a way to try and cover up your crime on the way to a real disposal method. -Acid-
This one's a fan favorite, especially if you're a fan of Breaking Bad. After all, a chemistry teacher should definitely
know what he's talking about when it comes to flesh dissolving acids. Well, Walter White was definitely using more
than hydrofluoric acid to get rid of his body. While hydrofluoric acid is great at breaking
flesh down, it takes a long time to act and won't completely break a body down. Of course that might not be such a big issue
if you're just looking to avoid having a body identified- but if you want to make it disappear
completely, it wont' do the trick. Hydrochloric acid is another good candidate,
but it gives off extremely strong fumes that are sure to give you away- and possibly kill
you if you aren't wearing a respirator. Unless you have no neighbors for a good distance
around you, hydrochloric acid in the quantities you need is going to both pose a serious health
hazard to yourself, and alert anybody with a working nose for quite a distance around
your house. Another problem with our previous two acids
is that getting access to large enough quantities of them to dissolve a body is going to raise
some serious red flags in the ensuing police investigation- especially if you get fingered
as a suspect. Instead, look for an over-the-counter solution,
specifically: drain unblocker. These products are designed to dissolve all
the human junk that you shove down your shower- or toilet- drain, so they're basically a shoe-in
for the job. The sodium hydroxide in the drain unblocker
is the active ingredient here, and will leave behind nothing much more than a shell of a
skeleton which can be easily ground up into dust. -Woodchipper-
A real movie classic, you know we couldn't leave this one out. Woodchippers are great for turning big problems
into a lot of very little problems. The downside to woodchippers though is that
they turn big problems into a lot of very little problems. As in blood, bone, and hair evidence that
will come out the other end in a high-speed blast of prosecution evidence against you
in court. Even going somewhere remote isn't guaranteed
to keep you safe from discovery, as the high speed grinding and shredding will emit a blast
of aerosolized blood which will plant DNA all over your clothes, and curious cops are
crazy good at sniffing out DNA evidence. -Davey Jones Locker-
There's perhaps no more classic body disposal method than to simply chuck it overboard into
the briny depths. First though, we do mean the briny depths-
forget about any freshwater lakes or even worse, a river. Those places are lousy with curious swimmers
and divers, and they are home to so much recreational and commercial activity that you're practically
begging to get caught. Don't take any chances and just rent yourself
a speedboat and pull off a Dexter by dumping the body overboard far out at sea. Just make sure that the body is going to,
you know, stay at the bottom of the ocean. As the human body decomposes, it bloats, and
this makes it incredibly buoyant, sending it bobbing back up to the surface. Same goes for body parts, so when sinking
your body you want to make sure that the entire thing is going to stay down there, and not
have a foot or an arm embarrassingly wash up on a beach a few weeks later. You should wrap the body tightly with something
that will resist both the erosive qualities of seawater and the nibbling of hungry sea
critters, so things like metal wire will work best. With the body wrapped tightly, it'll keep
limbs from floating away, and the added weight will help it stay at the bottom. Doing a bit of research into sea currents
couldn't hurt either, as it'll help you identify places where even if parts of the body break
off, they might not wash up near crowded beaches or at least take a long time to do so. Also, make sure you're going far out to sea-
like past the continental shelf where there's less chance of discovery. You might be looking at a trip of a hundred
or two hundred nautical miles, but it'll be worth it to make sure your little accident
isn't accidentally discovered. -Pigs-
In 2012 an Oregon farmer was eaten by his own pigs. By the time that family came by to check on
him, all that was left was his dentures and small bits of his body. In 2020, a polish farmer is believed to have
suffered a heart attack which caused him to keel over in his pig pen. The pigs devoured everything except for some
bits of skull and other bone. Both of these men were believed to have been
eaten after they were incapacitated or perhaps dead from heart attacks, but in 2015 a man
was knocked down by his pigs and eaten alive. The point we're very clearly trying to make
here is that pigs are scary good at getting rid of bodies, given their incredible appetites. Our sub-point is that you should eat more
bacon because if the pigs had it their way, you'd be the bacon. When feeding your body to pigs, you'll have
to keep an eye out for remaining bone fragments and things like teeth. You'll also want to pay close attention to
their poop, because large chunks of bone and those pesky teeth could be passed through
the digestive tract and leave behind evidence to be discovered. Also, you should probably take care not to
become a victim yourself, given how incredibly dangerous these seemingly placid animals can
be. -Molten Metal-
The problem with fire is that normal fire doesn't burn hot enough to dispose of a body,
so naturally one might be tempted to consider the superheated flames of a modern smelting
refinery. You would be right in assuming that these
superheated fires will eradicate a human body, and you could even pose the body with a thumbs
up so you could pay fan service to Terminator II while you're at it. If you're in short supply of molten metal,
or have no friendly smelter around willing to give you private access to their industrial
facility while asking few questions, you could try and drop the body into lava, which burns
around 1200 C and is more than enough to incinerate every piece of evidence a body might leave
behind. That might require a bit of a trek to get
to the top of a currently active volcano, in which case we recommend you chop the body
up into more manageable pieces and wrap them in seran wrap. You can make multiple trips, sticking parts
of the body in your bag a few at a time- and if you freeze the body before you get to chopping
you'll avoid much of the mess. -Promession-
If fire isn't your thing, maybe ice is. Promession is pretty much the opposite of
cremation, though might require a bit more industrial equipment to pull off successively. While cremating a body reduces it to ash,
promession reduces the body to freeze dried powder. First the body is frozen and placed in a vat
of liquid nitrogen, then once fully frozen the body is placed on a mechanical device
which vibrates the body at incredible speeds. This disintegrates the fragile and frozen
body into a powder, after which the powder is freeze-dried in a vacuum chamber which
sucks out all the water. What's left is a very manageable powdered
mass of ex-human being, which will be impossible to identify and easily disposed of. Want to dive deeper into the world of crime? Then check out The First Ever Crime Has Just
Been Committed In Space, or click this other video instead!
But I will
Speak for yourself nerd