Well, perhaps you are confusing habeas corpus with corpus
delicti. Habeas corpus is the requirement that evidence be
presented that a crime has been committed before someone can be
held for trial. Corpus delicti is the body of evidence of a
crime. While it is a common misconception that a physical corps
must be in evidence to prove a homicide it is not so. A death can
be proven by circumstantial evidence. It is more difficult but
has been done many times. So, you can dissolve the body but still
not get away with it.
For more see:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_delicti>
A corpus delicti must be shown for any crime.
Crime fiction is full of this sort of thing. For instance,
the famous novel "Laura" has an argument about whether the
murderer can be charged with the crime because the body was
misidentified at the beginning and was creamated under the
mistaken name. This is, of course, nonsense. Vera Caspery gets
away with it by having the murderer killed at the end with no
arrest or trial needed. Dorothy L. Sayers tries another tack in a
Lord Peter Wimsey story where the victim is silver plated and
used as furniture. However, the skeleton is still there under the
plating. The murderer gets pushed into his own plating bath.
I can't remember and don't want to look up the famous English
murderer who dissolved his victims but there was enough left over
to prove the deaths. Was this the one arrested by wireless?
Since I am blabbering away here (blame The Virus) it is a
favorite bother of mine that in crime literature all
photographers are supposed to have a large supply of cyanide. In
fact there are uses for cyanide in photography but most
photographers never even heard of it. Some time look up
Monckhoven's Intensifier for a scary formula.
On 1/8/2021 4:05 PM, BOB KISS wrote:
Sounds like the basis of a murder mystery where the evil genius is protected by habeas corpus! LOL!!!
