During the Sicilian Mafia warfare of the other 1980s , residents of Palermo reverence the “ white shotgun ” orlupara bianca — a execution where the body go away . If one offended the Corleonesi ( a corporate trust from Corelone , a real place made famous by the fictionalGodfathermovies ) , hit man Filippo Marchese would tempt the wrongdoer to the chamber of end ( nothing good come from an invite to the chamber of expiry ) , where he allegedly garroted the dupe before dumping the body into a vat of sulphuric pane .
Mafia informants blow to police force officers and prosecutors that an battery-acid bath have a body to disappear in as small as 15 mo . According to rumors , Marchese converge the same end as his victims , with his last swimming in a tub of dot ( when constabulary raid the sleeping room of death , they discover silo of acid ) . Almost 30 years later , researchers in Palermo , tested the claim that sulphuric acid dissolve bodies and found that this method might not be as effective as some Mafiosos claimed .
Researchers , lead by Massimo Grillo and Filippo Cascino of the University of Palermo , used pig carcasses as a bandstand in for human remains ( hog are the most popular renewal for human bodies in forensic test ) . They immersed the carcasses in an acid bathing tub and discovered it took days for bodies to dissolve in sulfuric acid . When the researchers added piss , gristle and muscles liquefy within 12 hours , but it still took two days for the bones to vanish . The researchers reported their findings in February during theAmerican Academy of Forensic Sciences ’ annual meeting .
“ [ I]t is impossible that they completely destroyed a stiff with back breaker , ” Grillo told theScience News .
Some researchers take this report ’s results might be inaccurate because Grillo and Cascino used sloven carcase rather than human corpse . But most forensic research involving human bodies is conducted on grunter and this is considered an acceptable scientific approaching .
