Identified by his dental records

pickarooney

Seriously, what the hell is this crap? Everytime someone is burned to a crisp or mutiliated beyond recognition on some US TV cop show, they jsut identify him by his dental records.... what are these dental records, who they get them from and how do they know who to ask in the first place if they can't identify the body?

IvyTheTerrible

pickarooney wrote: »

Seriously, what the hell is this crap? Everytime someone is burned to a crisp or mutiliated beyond recognition on some US TV cop show, they jsut identify him by his dental records.... what are these dental records, who they get them from and how do they know who to ask in the first place if they can't identify the body?

They get them from the dentist. They would have a list of missing people, say, or if it was a fire, maybe a list of residents. Then they would be able to ask the local dentists, and compare all the relevant dental records against the dead person's teeth.

xzanti

I'd imagine in most cases they would have an idea already who the person is and then it's just a case of obtaining the records from the persons Dentist, they'd probably get the name of the Dentist from the deceased's family?

Or maybe it's like the finger print thing where they X-Ray the dead persons mouth and throw the images into a data base type thing and wait for a match to come up???

pickarooney

OK, I don't go to the dentist all that often but I can't imagine any of the dentists I4ve ever visited would have anything detailed enough to identify my mangled body with (even if, for argument's sake, my teeth hadn't all been smashed up). What kind of data do dentists have? And why dentists as supposed to ophthalmologists or chiropractors?

NothingMan

pickarooney wrote: »

OK, I don't go to the dentist all that often but I can't imagine any of the dentists I4ve ever visited would have anything detailed enough to identify my mangled body with (even if, for argument's sake, my teeth hadn't all been smashed up). What kind of data do dentists have? And why dentists as supposed to ophthalmologists or chiropractors?

Generally the first thing a dentist will do with a new patient is take an X-Ray of their teeth. I'm sure the right person could match up the crooked teeth, fillings and gaps etc. with these X-Rays.

AnonoBoy

This is the very reason that I change dentists after every check up and make sure to burn down their offices when I'm done with them.

Off the grid man, off the grid.

Blazer

Your teeth are unique to you just like your fingerprints.
All dentists in the US upload all x-rays to a central database whereby law enforcement would have access to said records then.


Seriously..how the fcuk would I know? but I guess it's something like above.

well...whaddya know...the Feds have one

http://foia.fbi.gov/ndirpia.htm

Naos

AnonoBoy wrote: »

This is the very reason that I change dentists after every check up and make sure to burn down their offices when I'm done with them.

Off the grid man, off the grid.

Lol.

To be fair, I can never recall getting my teeth x-rayed nor any specific documenation done on them.

Though I have gaps so people notice if I even bite a bit of their chocolate

genericguy

pickarooney wrote: »

Seriously, what the hell is this crap? Everytime someone is burned to a crisp or mutiliated beyond recognition on some US TV cop show, they jsut identify him by his dental records.... what are these dental records, who they get them from and how do they know who to ask in the first place if they can't identify the body?

it pisses me off when people say something is 'crap' purely because they don't understand it.

pickarooney

genericguy wrote: »

it pisses me off when people say something is 'crap' purely because they don't understand it.

Boojie, boojie, boo.

genericguy

pickarooney wrote: »

Boojie, boojie, boo.

Translation: I mock those with the impetus to research things for themselves, whilst I sit back and call everything I don't understand shít.

Ginny

Dentist keep a record of which tooth is filled, capped or removed on your file, they usually also have x-rays. It's not that hard to figure out.
Anyone who has been to the dentist in the last 5-10 years would have a detailed record like this.

pickarooney

I just don't buy it. In order to get any of the above information you need to pretty much already know who the corpse belongs to and the teeth have to be intact and have contacted the next of kin and they would have to know who your dentist was and the dentist would have had to have reason to X-ray your teeth at some point recently. There are just too many parameters and it would take far too much time to follow up even if the above were all known, which is highly unlikely for the average John Doe who gets magically identified overnight by forensic detectives.

wudangclan

i think peoples identities are usually confirmed by dental record,when they have an idea who that person may be already.

genericguy

pickarooney wrote: »

I just don't buy it. In order to get any of the above information you need to pretty much already know who the corpse belongs to and the teeth have to be intact and have contacted the next of kin and they would have to know who your dentist was and the dentist would have had to have reason to X-ray your teeth at some point recently. There are just too many parameters and it would take far too much time to follow up even if the above were all known, which is highly unlikely for the average John Doe who gets magically identified overnight by forensic detectives.

well genomic and mitochondrial DNA can also be taken from the teeth, so when somebody is missing and a corpse is found, a relative of the missing person can give a sample for comparative analysis.

Big_G

In the absence of the ability of relative to confirm the identity of a body because it has been so badly disfigured, the dental records can be used to identify the person.

This is because the teeth are some of the last structures to be destroyed in an extreme environment such as fire or wet conditions.

You don't need radiographs (x-rays). You can do it with well kept written records.

There also is a branch of dentistry concerned with forensics, that is identifying people from characteristics of their teeth without the use of dental records.

bonerjams03

Because Hitler was identified by his Dental records...

Just sayin. Its probably just an anecdote applied to shíte non-realisticIcan'tbelievethatstheonedetailyou'dgethungupon: shows.