Master of Ceremonies: Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. First of all may I thank you all for coming along tonight and supporting our appeal to raise funds for the sick children's unit.
Alex Law: You didn't tell me that this was for children. I hate children. I'd raise money to have the little fuckers put down. I want me money back.
Shallow Grave (1994)
21 quotes
Directed by: Danny Boyle
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston, Kerry Fox, Ken Stott
Plot hole: When Juliet and David spend some money, they are seen watching a tape of the footage they filmed with a new camcorder. When Alex is in the bath, we see him with the camcorder (it is not a reflection in the mirror) - where did the second one come from?
Question: Is removing hands, feet and teeth really sufficient to prevent the corpses being identified? What about DNA?
Answer: Identifying a body (or anyone for that matter) through DNA would only work if that person's DNA is already on file and you had something to compare it to (and getting a DNA match is an extensive process that doesn't happen over night despite what some TV shows suggest). I don't know about the UK, but in the US, federal DNA databases didn't really start until 1994. And only a few states started a felon DNA database in the 90's, so it's unlikely Hugo's DNA was on file. It's much more likely that a person's fingerprints or dental records were on file since they were much more common and not exclusive to felons. Again though, those records would have to be on file in order to compare to a body. I don't know if the feet removal was more for the dark comedy aspect or if they thought his feet print were on file and would be viable (i.e. prints taken when he was born in the hospital).
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Answer: Even with head, hands and feet removed, a lot about a person's identity can be determined from body scars, tattoos, body tissue and blood samples, etc. Sex, age, height, weight, body-fat content, race, hair color, and pre-death physical health can all be determined rather easily through traditional means, even given only a torso for examination. Once investigators have a general idea of identity, they can compare their findings to a missing persons database and narrow it down further to likely matches. Then they can request DNA samples from the families of likely missing persons and compare it to the DNA of the corpse. Of course, if the corpse was never reported as missing, that would bring the investigation to a dead-end.
Charles Austin Miller