How to remove DNA evidence from a body

Wanderluster · Nov 25, 2013

Hi experts,

My 16yo MC has killed a 17yo boy by a river and needs to get rid of any evidence linking her to his body.

In my current draft she deletes pictures and recent phone calls to her from his phone, wipes prints, places it back in his pocket. Then she rolls him into a shallow, slow-moving part of the river, supporting his weight, and scrubs his hands, face, under his nails, any part of his body that touched her with some moss. She scrubs the inside of his mouth, because he had kissed her right before he tried to kill her (she killed him in self-defense but doesn't think anyone will believe that), and she tries to wash off any hair, skin, blood, or other residual DNA from his body and clothes before she sends him down the river. Then she washes herself as best as possible before getting out of the river.

Is any of this realistic? Potentially effective? Could she do something more effective?

The complication is that my MC has a special gift where she can tap into general human consciousness - kind of like having her brain permanently plugged into Google. She can't read minds or know what one individual knows, but she knows the kind of general information you can find on the Internet.

This means I need her to behave not as a typical 16yo would in this situation, but based on the best possible, published information on how to remove evidence from a crime scene. From what I hear, CSI isn't the best source for this information, and what with the NSA's new Spy Center in Utah, I feel a bit weird looking up, "how to get rid of a dead body without leaving evidence" in Google. :gone:

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Helix · Nov 25, 2013

Burn the body? Douse it thoroughly with strong bleach?

cornflake · Nov 25, 2013

Wanderluster said:
Hi experts,

My 16yo MC has killed a 17yo boy by a river and needs to get rid of any evidence linking her to his body.

In my current draft she deletes pictures and recent phone calls to her from his phone, wipes prints, places it back in his pocket. Then she rolls him into a shallow, slow-moving part of the river, supporting his weight, and scrubs his hands, face, under his nails, any part of his body that touched her with some moss. She scrubs the inside of his mouth, because he had kissed her right before he tried to kill her (she killed him in self-defense but doesn't think anyone will believe that), and she tries to wash off any hair, skin, blood, or other residual DNA from his body and clothes before she sends him down the river. Then she washes herself as best as possible before getting out of the river.

Is any of this realistic? Potentially effective? Could she do something more effective?

The complication is that my MC has a special gift where she can tap into general human consciousness - kind of like having her brain permanently plugged into Google. She can't read minds or know what one individual knows, but she knows the kind of general information you can find on the Internet.

This means I need her to behave not as a typical 16yo would in this situation, but based on the best possible, published information on how to remove evidence from a crime scene. From what I hear, CSI isn't the best source for this information, and what with the NSA's new Spy Center in Utah, I feel a bit weird looking up, "how to get rid of a dead body without leaving evidence" in Google.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

She has to take and utterly destroy the phone, first taking out the battery.

Then - wait, how'd she kill him?

Also, she'd be better off doing this naked, with her hair tied and covered and her body shaved and freshly showered. Her rubbing with moss is likely not a great plan but I dunno what she actually did or how far she rolls him through what and what he's got on.

Wanderluster · Nov 25, 2013

Helix said:
Burn the body? Douse it thoroughly with strong bleach?

That would certainly work. Unfortunately, she and the body are soaking wet, she's stranded by the river with no matches, no fuel, no bleach, and no way to even get home. I've boxed my poor MC into a bit of a corner.

cornflake said:
She has to take and utterly destroy the phone, first taking out the battery.

Then - wait, how'd she kill him?

Also, she'd be better off doing this naked, with her hair tied and covered and her body shaved and freshly showered. Her rubbing with moss is likely not a great plan but I dunno what she actually did or how far she rolls him through what and what he's got on.

She doesn't destroy the phone because she's hoping to make it look like there's no foul play. He pushed her off a waterfall hoping for the same, but she survived and managed to overcome him with the help of her Google brain. He died with a cracked skull on a rock, so it's conceivable he died in an accident. Maybe. Can the cops access the deleted data? Probably. Can she hack the phone to permanently erase it? Maybe. Or do you think she should smash the thing into a million pieces and hope they never find it?

Yeah, all the fibers and hairs. I have her try to remove as much as possible. She's going to burn her clothes when she gets home so they at least can't link the fibers to her. My understanding of the CSI effect is that forensic evidence isn't anywhere near as easy to obtain or definite as they make it out on TV. I just don't know where that middle ground of accuracy is.

Again, this doesn't need to be perfect - it can't be - but I would like it to be the best she can do with the very limited resources she has.

Definitely open to new ideas if there's a way she can handle this better. Thanks for the ideas so far!

Putputt · Nov 26, 2013

Not sure about rubbing the moss everywhere, especially under his fingernails, because won't that make it look like he was struggling? Can she roll him into the river and have him go down the waterfall? I wonder if the force of the waterfall would do more to erase evidence as well as destroy his phone...

cornflake · Nov 26, 2013

Wanderluster said:
That would certainly work. Unfortunately, she and the body are soaking wet, she's stranded by the river with no matches, no fuel, no bleach, and no way to even get home. I've boxed my poor MC into a bit of a corner.

She doesn't destroy the phone because she's hoping to make it look like there's no foul play. He pushed her off a waterfall hoping for the same, but she survived and managed to overcome him with the help of her Google brain. He died with a cracked skull on a rock, so it's conceivable he died in an accident. Maybe. Can the cops access the deleted data? Probably. Can she hack the phone to permanently erase it? Maybe. Or do you think she should smash the thing into a million pieces and hope they never find it?

Yeah, all the fibers and hairs. I have her try to remove as much as possible. She's going to burn her clothes when she gets home so they at least can't link the fibers to her. My understanding of the CSI effect is that forensic evidence isn't anywhere near as easy to obtain or definite as they make it out on TV. I just don't know where that middle ground of accuracy is.

Again, this doesn't need to be perfect - it can't be - but I would like it to be the best she can do with the very limited resources she has.

Definitely open to new ideas if there's a way she can handle this better. Thanks for the ideas so far!

Wait, why's she erasing the phone? I presumed there was obvious evidence on it. If not, erasing pics and texts is weird, as she was his gf - unless you mean only of that day, in which case, it's super suspicious and yes, they can find the stuff with no problem, likely as not.

Ok, in general, the thing about forensic evidence is that, because of the idiocy of shows like CSI, people expect there to be things gleaned from evidence that cannot be (I saw one half of one episode once. When a guy pulled a dismembered foot out of a swamp, looked at the cut end of the tibia and declared that the foot belonged to a 15-year-old girl I was done with it.) and expect all criminal investigations to involve forensic evidence of the sort they see on tv (fingerprints, DNA, hair and fibre analysis, etc., etc., when those things are often not used, often wouldn't help anything, and so on).

What can actually be gathered and figured out if someone is trying is often better than tv.

I also kind of presumed your cops were trying and using all available tools. This may not be the case, I dunno.

Did she push him and he fell and hit his head? Did she rock him? The rolling him into the water kind of rules out accidental, unless the cops are complete morons and so's the ME. What'd he die of? What's she trying to make it look like?

Putputt · Nov 26, 2013

OOooOOoohhh, have her roll him into the waterfall, he goes down the waterfall, gets bashed everywhere, floats downstream...and gets EATEN BY A ~~HIPPO~~ BEAR. By the time the cops find him he's a mess of gristle and le phone is in bear's tummy. Problem solved.

You is welcome.

*blows raspberry at the evil cereal flake*

Mac H. · Nov 26, 2013

Wanderluster said:
In my current draft she deletes pictures and recent phone calls to her from his phone, wipes prints, places it back in his pocket.

Terrible idea.

Let's assume, for a moment, that they decide to investigate the death.

Where are his own fingerprints on the phone ? He wiped it down carefully before putting it in his pocket? Does that sound plausible?

Now they look at the phone company records to see what calls were made or received. The odd thing is that someone appears to have wiped all of her calls - and her calls alone - from his phone. After all - the log in the phone doesn't match the phone company records.

So they'll look at the phone in detail and 'undelete' the pictures.

Now she has to explain why someone deleted all her pictures & calls from his phone and wiped the phone of fingerprints.

Almost the opposite of not appearing to be connected!

Of course - this assumes that someone cares enough to do an investigation.

When LeVena Johnson's body was found with a broken nose, a black eye, loose teeth, teeth imprints on her torso and even burns from a corrosive chemical on her genitals it wasn't suspicious enough to be deemed anything but a suicide.

If the killer is clever they'll give the investigators a good reason to ignore damning evidence - it's sadly more effective than eliminating the evidence.

Good luck,

Mac

Matthew Hughes · Nov 26, 2013

Wanderluster said:
He died with a cracked skull on a rock, so it's conceivable he died in an accident.

Unless there's evidence on the phone of an intent to commit murder -- a text from her saying, "I'm going to kill you" -- I don't see why she's going to all the trouble. You've got a dead body resulting from a fall in a slippery environment and a head injury on a rock. It's a prima facie accident, and if she's smart, that's how she'll play it. The cops may have suspicions, but they can't go forward without evidence.

Best to use his phone, or hers, to call for help. Destroying his phone, or wiping his (as well as her) fingerprints off it will just draw suspicion. Besides, even destroying the phone utterly will not erase the service provider's record of who phoned whom and when.

The simpler the situation, the fewer leads for investigators to follow. Whenever you get tricky, you offer your jugular vein to Occam's razor.

Friendly Frog · Nov 26, 2013

Wanderluster said:
My 16yo MC has killed a 17yo boy by a river and needs to get rid of any evidence linking her to his body.

Is the removing any link of her necessary for another plot point or just to avoid her being suspected of murder? Because if the boy is killed by a fall on a rock, it's easier, I think, to make as little changes as possible and make it look like an accidental fall rather than to go through all the motions of making it look like a cleaned-up murder. Tampering with a phone may then just add suspicion, rather than remove it.

If she can toss him off the same waterfall, and if there is no immediate place the body can wash up on, then the water can go a long way in removing incriminating fibers and evidence. I've seen CSI shows where perfect prints are pulled of objects long in the water, but personally I rather doubt that possibilty.

onesecondglance · Nov 26, 2013

Mac H. said:
Now she has to explain why someone deleted all her pictures & calls from his phone and wiped the phone of fingerprints.

Almost the opposite of not appearing to be connected!

This would be one of those instances where the absence of evidence is more suspicious than the evidence itself.

Putputt · Nov 26, 2013

A thought just occured to me: The boy was planning on killing the girl, right? So he would want to minimize the amount of evidence linking him to the girl. So maybe instead of texts or e-mail or phone calls, he could just pass her notes in class and tell her in person to meet him for a date or whatever. And he wouldn't tell anyone else he's going out with her because he's planning to kill her. So his murder plan would work in her favor. You don't have to worry about phone records, friends and family knowing they were out with each other, and so on. That way, when she brains him with a rock, she could just leave him there. Bonus points if he brought alcohol with him and they've been drinking before it happens. Then it could look like he came to the woods to drink, fell, hit his head on a rock, and died.

*feels sooper smart*

jclarkdawe · Nov 26, 2013

Standard practice in any death that the police investigate should be looking at the trash file. Unless she's a techie, it doesn't take much effort to check. Further, phone messages are recorded on her phone provider and the two can easily be cross-checked. Cell phones being "modified" are increasingly become a way to establish murder.

If they had been romantic, without sexual intercourse, then her DNA could be anywhere she touched, including his hair. Rubbing it with moss is just as likely to just smear it over his body. Further, moss particles would be left behind and how does she explain that?

Bleach leaves traces as well, and would be a reason to question what happened.

One approach is roll him into the water and make sure he stays sunk for a couple of weeks. Best approach is to tell the police what happened, because if this is self-defense, there will be indications that her story is accurate.

Without know what the evidence is that she feels is against her, it's next to impossible to figure out an approach. But take a look at that case in a National park, involving a woman allegedly murdering her new husband while on a honeymoon. Police became suspicious because of her story. Then they go hunting for physical evidence.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

benluby · Nov 26, 2013

Why would she not delete the texts and pictures of another girl instead, say, a rival, then wipe the phone down, to throw the cops off on a different tangent, pursuing her instead, or simply completely wipe the phone via a rock?

ElaineA · Nov 26, 2013

I'm with the KISS crowd, LW--keep it simple, sweetheart. She can use her googling brain to figure out how to keep her heart rate steady while they're questioning her if that's a character trait you're trying to use in this scene, but the elaborate ruse isn't necessary. "He wanted to show me the rainbow from the mist and he got too close to the edge." The more she makes it look like they actually were on a date, the less suspicious she looks. If they were together, her DNA on him and vice versa would be expected and thus, not suspicious. These are teenagers so there's less reason for cops to suspect foul play, I would think.

One thing she'll have to be careful of is the size of the rock she uses to hit him with and where she knocks him. It's got to be consistent with the effect of a fall. It's more likely he would have hit a large boulder in the fall than a hand-sized rock.

Cyia · Nov 26, 2013

If the phone's an issue, she should just take it. Shove him into the waterfall, and they'll assume the phone washed out of his pocket by the current.

WeaselFire · Nov 26, 2013

Scrub nothing, hide nothing. Have her make a panicked 911 call that her boyfriend just went over the falls and she can't find him.

Jeff

Torgo · Nov 26, 2013

In recent days I've learned on AW how to commit a murder in an apartment block without drawing attention, how to remove DNA evidence, and how to make it look like a suicide or accident. This place is a goldmine of murder tips!

Matthew Hughes · Nov 26, 2013

Torgo said:
In recent days I've learned on AW how to commit a murder in an apartment block without drawing attention, how to remove DNA evidence, and how to make it look like a suicide or accident. This place is a goldmine of murder tips!

I'm probably never going to use this, and it may not even be feasible, but . . .

They say that most of what we call household dust is actually flakes of sloughed-off human skin. So if someone disposed of a body by wrapping it in the old rug on which the killing took place, CSI types might be able to extract the killer's DNA from his/her dusty rug.

Anybody who wants it is welcome to it.

cornflake · Nov 26, 2013

Matthew Hughes said:
I'm probably never going to use this, and it may not even be feasible, but . . .

They say that most of what we call household dust is actually flakes of sloughed-off human skin. So if someone disposed of a body by wrapping it in the old rug on which the killing took place, CSI types might be able to extract the killer's DNA from his/her dusty rug.

Anybody who wants it is welcome to it.

The problem with that is that there is a mountain of such debris in an old, uncleaned rug. If it's the killer's rug, that's likely easier to figure as a whole than to try to isolate one person's skin flakes from a rug and figure which skin flakes belong to the killer.

In general though, people don't think of sloughed-off skin as a source of DNA, this is totally true. There's often more retrievable DNA in a worn t-shirt than a toothbrush.

Matthew Hughes · Nov 26, 2013

cornflake said:
If it's the killer's rug, that's likely easier to figure as a whole than to try to isolate one person's skin flakes from a rug and figure which skin flakes belong to the killer.

I should have stipulated that it would have been the killer's own rug. Perhaps a recluse, to make it more viable.

cornflake said:
In general though, people don't think of sloughed-off skin as a source of DNA, this is totally true.

Of course, the question is: is dust skin?

Anyway, it was just one of those thoughts that pop up when I should be thinking of something more useful.

Wanderluster · Nov 26, 2013

Holy platypuses, this thread exploded with awesome ideas while I was sleeping.

BRB. I need tea before my brain starts working.

Brandon M Johnson · Nov 26, 2013

I'm assuming your MC is not supposed to be caught; if she isn't, then wiping the phone seems like a bad idea. She could just get rid of it, but since this was self-defense and not pre-meditated, I doubt she texted him, "Hey, I'm going to kill you tonight." So, erasing all his texts does nothing but incriminate her. Best bet would be to smash it into tiny pieces and drop it into the river, or, if possible, take the phone with her and toss is in a random dumpster later.

Likewise, her DNA is going to be all over him if she kissed him, and I don't think moss will cover that. More importantly, what are the investigators meant to think about the moss? That he just rubbed it all over himself for no apparent reason?

Unless she somehow buries the body so it's never found, I don't see how she can realistically hide the fact that she was with him. If you're certain that she can't convince the cops that it was self-defense, maybe you should change tactics. Does she have a friend on the police force that can help cover it up? Or, would it be more dramatic (and realistic) if she were actually caught and arrested.

ironmikezero · Nov 26, 2013

You've got to figure out the worst that could happen to her under the circumstances you've described - and then drop her right into the middle of that hot mess... Take her to the very brink of her worst nightmare...

How she adapts, overcomes, and survives (thrives?) is your story.

quickWit · Nov 26, 2013

She's 16 and kills someone? I'd say she should (rightfully) flip-out, ditch the body in the river in a panic and get the hell out of there. Anything else wouldn't really ring true to me. All consideration of evidence, etc. (Oh, shit! I'm all over his phone! Holy crap! What if they find my DNA under his nails??) should come after her rational thinking returns.

Good luck

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