Intentional Body Dismemberment Following Nonhomicidal Deaths

Intentional body dismemberment is usually associated with homicides. This chapter presents two unusual cases of postmortem body dismemberment following accidental deaths. The cases presented were accidental drug overdoses associated with body packing. Body packers are people who ingest packets of illicit drugs or insert them into body cavities for purposes of smuggling. Fatalities occur when these ingested packets accidentally leak or rupture. In the cases presented, accomplices cut the decedent’s bodies to remove the drugs and then dismembered the bodies for disposal. Annual trends of body packer fatalities in New York City are also presented.