Murder and Disappear the Body
February 1, 2022 7:13 PM Subscribe
Back in 2004 I asked a question about murder.
The question was innocent, I swear! but scarabic got into it in a way that made some people a little concerned.
The question was innocent, I swear! but scarabic got into it in a way that made some people a little concerned.
Stan Chin was the real MVP.
posted by flod at 7:24 PM on February 1, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by flod at 7:24 PM on February 1, 2022 [15 favorites]
I take it the impetus for this post is the statute of limitations running out on the murder?
posted by miguelcervantes at 7:26 PM on February 1, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by miguelcervantes at 7:26 PM on February 1, 2022 [20 favorites]
I like to think that all of those 1066 favourites represent a Mefite grateful for that information.
posted by mhoye at 7:27 PM on February 1, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 7:27 PM on February 1, 2022 [14 favorites]
This is epic. Thank you.
posted by supermedusa at 7:29 PM on February 1, 2022
posted by supermedusa at 7:29 PM on February 1, 2022
Is this a... meta-MetaFilter post?
posted by tzikeh at 7:43 PM on February 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by tzikeh at 7:43 PM on February 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
[sits down at dinner table for fifteenth successive meal of Edgar stew]
[takes bite, chews angrily]
[suddenly throws down fork and knife in a rage]
There has got to be a better way!
[checks metafilter]
posted by phooky at 7:51 PM on February 1, 2022 [12 favorites]
[takes bite, chews angrily]
[suddenly throws down fork and knife in a rage]
There has got to be a better way!
[checks metafilter]
posted by phooky at 7:51 PM on February 1, 2022 [12 favorites]
this is gonna be a weird February.
posted by valkane at 7:55 PM on February 1, 2022 [19 favorites]
posted by valkane at 7:55 PM on February 1, 2022 [19 favorites]
I didn't even have to use my AK.
posted by Stan Chin ⭐at 1:49 PM on January 18, 2003
posted by clavdivs at 8:01 PM on February 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Stan Chin ⭐at 1:49 PM on January 18, 2003
posted by clavdivs at 8:01 PM on February 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 8:06 PM on February 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
I am so deeply indebted to AskMe because I use this advice almost every day.
posted by loquacious at 8:32 PM on February 1, 2022 [31 favorites]
posted by loquacious at 8:32 PM on February 1, 2022 [31 favorites]
I routinely quote the first line of Scarabic’s advice. It’s a little disconcerting to me that I think about it so much. It really is quite good advice.
posted by msali at 9:07 PM on February 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by msali at 9:07 PM on February 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
You can cut a body into 6 pieces faster than you think.
this remains one of the best lines of any askme answer ever posted
posted by secret about box at 9:13 PM on February 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
this remains one of the best lines of any askme answer ever posted
posted by secret about box at 9:13 PM on February 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
What really puzzled me is why you'd go to the trouble of burying the body. Drain it in the bathtub sure. But section it up into roast sized chunks or chops as if you were a cannibal and package them up in a big chest freezer. Use a hammer to reduce the skull and recognizable bones into stuff that isn't recognizable. Every week take out a roast, add barbeque sauce or garlic or whatever, roast it until nicely cooked and then leave it out on the counter until it goes nasty.
Hands and feet should be skinned, split from each other lengthwise, doused well in barbeque sauce and broiled until they are black enough to be unappetizing. They'll resemble ribs closely enough to go in the garbage.
Use tupperware, ziplock freezer bags, yogurt tubs and old two pound margarine tubs as coffins. Then pop the week's offering into your trash along with the carrot peelings, the last five slices of stale bread with a bit of mold starting on it and egg shells from the stuff you really did buy to eat.
Anyone who finds these remains in your garbage, or in the landfill is going to assume it is was from a pork shoulder that didn't get eaten and not poke any farther to figure out if it was from a different part of the pig. You won't even have to take the skin off anything but the hands and feet and head. Although a pig skin is tougher than a human one, it should match close enough.
It should take about a year if your garbage pick up is once every two weeks, or six months if they pick up on your street weekly.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:17 PM on February 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Hands and feet should be skinned, split from each other lengthwise, doused well in barbeque sauce and broiled until they are black enough to be unappetizing. They'll resemble ribs closely enough to go in the garbage.
Use tupperware, ziplock freezer bags, yogurt tubs and old two pound margarine tubs as coffins. Then pop the week's offering into your trash along with the carrot peelings, the last five slices of stale bread with a bit of mold starting on it and egg shells from the stuff you really did buy to eat.
Anyone who finds these remains in your garbage, or in the landfill is going to assume it is was from a pork shoulder that didn't get eaten and not poke any farther to figure out if it was from a different part of the pig. You won't even have to take the skin off anything but the hands and feet and head. Although a pig skin is tougher than a human one, it should match close enough.
It should take about a year if your garbage pick up is once every two weeks, or six months if they pick up on your street weekly.
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:17 PM on February 1, 2022 [8 favorites]
Metafilter: not poke any farther to figure out
posted by soylent00FF00 at 9:22 PM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by soylent00FF00 at 9:22 PM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
When my cousin’s abusive husband ran off with his mistress and she had to deal with closing and the bankruptcy of their failed pig farm, was it suspicious that she sent the bacon, ribs and ham from the last of the pigs to his parents?
posted by interogative mood at 9:57 PM on February 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 9:57 PM on February 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
ok. awkward.
posted by emmling at 9:58 PM on February 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by emmling at 9:58 PM on February 1, 2022 [5 favorites]
Thanks for making me feel old, ashbury. I remember this chapter in MeFi history very well. It happened a couple of months after I met scarabic in person, and even went to a party at his house. Made me think twice about going to a meetup ever again! For the record, he came across as rather normal.
posted by epimorph at 10:25 PM on February 1, 2022
posted by epimorph at 10:25 PM on February 1, 2022
Pig farm, eh? A coupla books I've read recently featured hog farms where the hungry swine disappeared bodies.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:29 PM on February 1, 2022
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:29 PM on February 1, 2022
Stan Chin was the real MVP.
Indeed. If I ever deliver a followup that laconic and perfect, I will die a happy man.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:31 PM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Indeed. If I ever deliver a followup that laconic and perfect, I will die a happy man.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:31 PM on February 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
If the question were to be asked again today, there would be a new problem to consider. Back in 2004 you would have only the body to deal with. Today, that body would be overwhelmingly likely to come with a 24/7 tracking device, i.e. a smartphone, which complicates matters enormously.
I will leave it to scarabic's successor to come up with a plan to separate the body from its phone with plausible deniability.
posted by Deepspace at 12:31 AM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
I will leave it to scarabic's successor to come up with a plan to separate the body from its phone with plausible deniability.
posted by Deepspace at 12:31 AM on February 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Based on the local news, I would say say, step one is, don't do meth.
posted by eustatic at 1:04 AM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by eustatic at 1:04 AM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
I met scarabic in person too, back in the day. He seemed like such a nice, quiet guy.
posted by vacapinta at 1:17 AM on February 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by vacapinta at 1:17 AM on February 2, 2022 [5 favorites]
Also it's not very well known that Stan Chin posted the first ever post on Metafilter.
posted by vacapinta at 1:23 AM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by vacapinta at 1:23 AM on February 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
He was smart from the very beginning.
posted by taz at 2:56 AM on February 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by taz at 2:56 AM on February 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
I disagree about all that fluid disposal if you are at all worried the police may search your home under suspicion of murder. One little luminol investigation will find those blood droplets you think you cleaned up.
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:30 AM on February 2, 2022
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:30 AM on February 2, 2022
(And oh yes, the cell phone. Don't have one, if you are planning a murder. And don't Google anything about murder or body disposal!)
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:31 AM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:31 AM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Hmmm /suspicion creeping in/ ... I'm, I'm beginning to feel like you might need a larger frying pan, tfp.
posted by taz at 5:24 AM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by taz at 5:24 AM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
I work in criminal law...I've seen too many bad plans turn into life in prison! Not that I want anyone to murder anyone and get away with it.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:30 AM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:30 AM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Snatch came out after the OP and seems to have included some of the discussed. I wonder if Guy Ritchie was lurking..
posted by interogative mood at 11:41 AM on February 2, 2022
posted by interogative mood at 11:41 AM on February 2, 2022
When I saw this clip of Stephen King's guest appearance on Sons of Anarchy (spoilers for SoA, I guess), I thought of this post.
Jane the Brown, the problem with that solution is that 1) it takes a while, 2) a lot of work over that year, and 3) raccoons. My solution would be, since I live near a big river (I'm defining "big" as "navigable by barge traffic"), to take the body to the river and puncture its abdomen before throwing it in; that should keep the gases of decomposition from making the body bloat and float. Fish will take care of the rest, and the likelihood of it getting dredged is slim to nil, although I wonder how many skeletons would be found if they did.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:11 PM on February 2, 2022
Jane the Brown, the problem with that solution is that 1) it takes a while, 2) a lot of work over that year, and 3) raccoons. My solution would be, since I live near a big river (I'm defining "big" as "navigable by barge traffic"), to take the body to the river and puncture its abdomen before throwing it in; that should keep the gases of decomposition from making the body bloat and float. Fish will take care of the rest, and the likelihood of it getting dredged is slim to nil, although I wonder how many skeletons would be found if they did.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:11 PM on February 2, 2022
Yeah, I met scarabic at jonmc's Vegas wedding in 2006. Great guy. He's one of my all-time favorite mefi contributors.
The Catch-22 of criming, I think, is that the likelihood of being caught is directly proportional to the strength of the motivation for doing it in the first place.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:02 PM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Catch-22 of criming, I think, is that the likelihood of being caught is directly proportional to the strength of the motivation for doing it in the first place.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:02 PM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Catch-22 of criming, I think, is that the likelihood of being caught is directly proportional to the strength of the motivation for doing it in the first place.
This is true. This is why I only murder ironically, sarcastically or apathetically.
posted by loquacious at 3:09 PM on February 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
This is true. This is why I only murder ironically, sarcastically or apathetically.
posted by loquacious at 3:09 PM on February 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
Makes me nostalgic for the "bad old days" of mefi.
posted by Carbolic at 8:37 PM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Carbolic at 8:37 PM on February 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
>I will leave it to scarabic's successor to come up with a plan to separate the body from its phone with plausible deniability.
[I can try a pastiche but homage isn't as good as the original. Be a car driver and your victim a cyclist, and their smartphone isn't even a thing to worry about. The stats on vehicular manslaughter in the UK and USA are that it's effective if you can make yourself look reasonable careless.]
First, don't be smartphones from the very beginning. If you must, there's three radios (plus near-field comms/RFID) to worry about: phone radio, wifi and bluetooth. If you can get the SIM/IMEI cloned onto another device[1] and have it wandering around and triangulated by other cell towers in a different part of the country then the search area will be well away from you.
Their phone might have logged that they were near your WiFi or near a neighbour's WiFi, so hide your WiFi beacon out of habit and only give out passwords for access that you cycle through anyway[2]. If their location history is using both GPS and WiFi data, then getting that second device to recover their account and to remove location data or to augment it past their demise.
Bluetooth is pernicious: Apple's "Find My..." is like AirTags for putting out an encrypted breadcrumb trail onto compatible devices, which take those back to the internet and eventually upload them to Apple's servers for the owner of a group of devices to decrypt when they want to 'find my' device[3]. A similar system comes with the Covid Track-and-Trace in the flavours made by Google and Samsung, plus your legal and regulatory environment might have its own app.
There may be a way round bluetooth leaving trails of location data, if you're able to access their handset and to load an app made for testing that supplies synthetic location data. The hard mode for this will be to replay captured GPS signals from another location at the time of the events you want to cover up, but that cloned SIM and other cell tower triangulation might also corroborate this syncthetic location data. It might look synthetic, so long as it causes all the location data to look off and not just the extra guff you added.
Health and life data in a watch? It's bad, but not terrible. Heart rates have zones they sit around for different types of activity, and the data-gathering smart watch also track a metric for how fast you move between zones, Heart Rate Variability alongside resting heart rate. Maybe a fitness watch needs to take a holiday with the other data-device in another location.
... Well, that's a pain. Maybe there's another way. If you forget about data capturing devices, can you use the body to break a window and get the victim's blood on it and claim self defence in time of a home invasion?
1: Simple social engineering can get the provider to clone an account via SIM for you, device IMEI cloneable but requires help from an illicit nerd
2: WPA2 is considered insecure and badly-configured WPA3 can fallback to insecure WPA2, so cycle your passwords regularly
3: Apple's stance is that this isn't something they can decrypt because the system is using encryption keys held within the group of devices that can read the breadcrumb trail. The breadcrumb trail should be opaque to everyone outside that group -- if you trust that there's no flaw in this system and that Apple don't have an obligation to law enforcement
posted by k3ninho at 6:03 AM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
[I can try a pastiche but homage isn't as good as the original. Be a car driver and your victim a cyclist, and their smartphone isn't even a thing to worry about. The stats on vehicular manslaughter in the UK and USA are that it's effective if you can make yourself look reasonable careless.]
First, don't be smartphones from the very beginning. If you must, there's three radios (plus near-field comms/RFID) to worry about: phone radio, wifi and bluetooth. If you can get the SIM/IMEI cloned onto another device[1] and have it wandering around and triangulated by other cell towers in a different part of the country then the search area will be well away from you.
Their phone might have logged that they were near your WiFi or near a neighbour's WiFi, so hide your WiFi beacon out of habit and only give out passwords for access that you cycle through anyway[2]. If their location history is using both GPS and WiFi data, then getting that second device to recover their account and to remove location data or to augment it past their demise.
Bluetooth is pernicious: Apple's "Find My..." is like AirTags for putting out an encrypted breadcrumb trail onto compatible devices, which take those back to the internet and eventually upload them to Apple's servers for the owner of a group of devices to decrypt when they want to 'find my' device[3]. A similar system comes with the Covid Track-and-Trace in the flavours made by Google and Samsung, plus your legal and regulatory environment might have its own app.
There may be a way round bluetooth leaving trails of location data, if you're able to access their handset and to load an app made for testing that supplies synthetic location data. The hard mode for this will be to replay captured GPS signals from another location at the time of the events you want to cover up, but that cloned SIM and other cell tower triangulation might also corroborate this syncthetic location data. It might look synthetic, so long as it causes all the location data to look off and not just the extra guff you added.
Health and life data in a watch? It's bad, but not terrible. Heart rates have zones they sit around for different types of activity, and the data-gathering smart watch also track a metric for how fast you move between zones, Heart Rate Variability alongside resting heart rate. Maybe a fitness watch needs to take a holiday with the other data-device in another location.
... Well, that's a pain. Maybe there's another way. If you forget about data capturing devices, can you use the body to break a window and get the victim's blood on it and claim self defence in time of a home invasion?
1: Simple social engineering can get the provider to clone an account via SIM for you, device IMEI cloneable but requires help from an illicit nerd
2: WPA2 is considered insecure and badly-configured WPA3 can fallback to insecure WPA2, so cycle your passwords regularly
3: Apple's stance is that this isn't something they can decrypt because the system is using encryption keys held within the group of devices that can read the breadcrumb trail. The breadcrumb trail should be opaque to everyone outside that group -- if you trust that there's no flaw in this system and that Apple don't have an obligation to law enforcement
posted by k3ninho at 6:03 AM on February 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
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posted by Reverend John at 7:20 PM on February 1, 2022 [5 favorites]