A report at the Feb 23 meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences has determined that the mafia snitches’ claims regarding the mob’s ability to undetectably eradicate the remains of a murder victim with sulfuric acid were overstated. Though informants had claimed that the acid used by crime boss Filippo Marchese in his “lupara bianca” (“white shotgun”) torture chambers would liquify a corpse in 15 or 20 minutes, researchers working with pig carcasses concluded that, at a minimum, a bath of sulfuric acid and water (which accelerates the acid’s effects) would take two days.
The research suggests that the members of the crime clan were not as good at telling time as they were at ritual murder.
But “they are smarter than some Georgia criminals,” said Michael Heninger, an associate medical examiner in Fulton County, where Atlanta is located. “People think they will destroy a body, but they’ll do things that preserve it. These guys are more experienced,” he said of the Palermo killings.
It isn’t obvious whether the new research will translate into something usable for future investigations. “We constantly see cases that are weird,” says Heninger. “I’m never going to see this exact case, but when you do see something weird like this, it gets you thinking about how you would figure it out.”
Mafia’s Corpse-Dissolving Claims Exaggerated
(via JWZ)
(Image: melting skeleton, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 75001512@N00’s photostream)