Shallow Graves

Body disposal is an important part of any decent murder plan. It's like a government scandal without the paper-shredding. Or washing your Hawaiian shirts and not ironing them. Many people are in prison today because they did not have a well thought out end game.

Of course, a lot of psychopaths nearly got away with it anyway. Like the time two Milwaukee police officers returned the 14 year old boy who was wandering naked down the street, heavily drugged and bleeding from his rectum, to Jeffrey Dahmer. When confronted, Dahmer told them that the boy was his 19 year old lover and that they were having a drunken argument. THAT was much better!

But usually, once the foul deed (murder) is done, it is just not good etiquette to leave the bodies laying about. It is the quickest way to get noticed. So body disposal does become important.

What made me think about all of this is that I spent part of my week digging a fire pit in my back yard. It took me six and a half hours over two days to dig a five foot diameter hole, twelve inches deep. And, "No," I didn't use a teaspoon. I just happen to be cursed with very rocky soil.

Which got me to thinking about the guy who commits, up until the burial, a perfect murder. He has the body wrapped in a tarp, placed in the plastic lined trunk of his car. Next to the body are two stolen shovels (just in case one breaks). He has several flashlights and a rake to smooth out the newly disturbed earth. Perfect.

Then he encounters soil like mine which required a pick, a heavy digging bar, a shovel and a gravel rake. It'll take him about an hour and a half just to cut the sod away. Without a pick to break up and loosen the obstinate rocks he'll probably break the tip of his shovel off in the first ten minutes of the actual dig.

By the time he realizes his problem, it is too late to change plans. He has already carried the body a quarter of a mile into the woods, just off of the main highway. He's made a second trip for all of the tools and has just wasted an hour and a half cutting away the sod. It is only 45 minutes until dawn (because most heinous deeds are done in the wee hours) and within an hour he will be able to be seen from the highway.

This is why we hear the term "shallow grave" so often. Poor planning and rough terrain. When was the last time you heard about hikers coming across a body buried six feet down in a proper burial vault? It never happens.

So take my advice. If you are planning that "perfect crime" - plan ahead. Pre-plowed farm land is nice. Or perhaps a quaint little murder on a sandy beach. It wouldn't even hurt to dig the grave before the crime. Because haste makes waste. Or at least 20 years to life.

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