Dental Records

Question

I was watching a murder mystery the other night, and in one scene, the police identified a dead body by using dental records, but they didn't even know whose body it might be, and it was found in a state all the way across the country.
My question is how did they do it? Is there a national database of dental records or something? Do police departments in different states share the dental records of missing people with each other?

When police are trying to match dental records, what's the first step in the investigation, if they have no idea whose body it might be? Do they call all the local dentists to try to find a match or what?

None of the details have ever been given in any of the movies or TV shows I've watched, and I was just curious what the procedure is.

Elroy Willis
www.elroysemporium.com

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]I was watching a murder mystery the other night, and in one scene, the police identified a dead body by ... of the movies or TV shows I've watched, and I was just curious what the procedure is. Elroy Williswww.elroysemporium.com[/nq]
So far as I know, there's no national clearing house for dental records and even if there was, there's no automated process that I've ever heard about that would allow the police to put in somebody's dental records and, in essence, have the system scan a few million or hundred million dental records and come up with likely matches.

The ability of an automated system to do that even with fingerprints is fairly recent and even in the case of fingerprints, the automated system can only narrow it down to twenty or thirty close matches which a human eye has to compare and even in that case, they're only dealing with people who have been fingerprinted in various national data bases like people who have been arrested or bonded.

Dental X-rays are medical records and I would assume, you would need a warrant to get them, like all medical records a cop can't just walk into your doctor's office, open a cabinet and start flipping through the files to see what he can find there. No different with a dentist (I mean, there are some exceptions, such as if a patient comes in with a gun shot wound or comes to the E.R. suffering from a heroin overdose).
So really, things like dental records are useful but it falls into the category of "confirmatory" evidence. It's useful as a way of confirming the identity of somebody once you're starting to circle in on their identity. Like you've narrowed it down to a 22 year old caucasian female of a particular height with a broken left leg and you find out that a woman of that description went missing on a particular date that matches up to the date of death of your victim and then you go and use the dental records of that person to see if you get a match.
But not particularly useful if you're starting from nothing.

NMS

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I was watching a murder mystery the other night, and ... watched, and I was just curious what the procedure is.[/nq]
[nq:1]So far as I know, there's no national clearing house for dental records and even if there was, there's no ... in essence, have the system scan a few million or hundred million dental records and come up with likely matches.[/nq]
I didn't think so, but was curious. I thought there might be some nationwide database of dental records of missing people or something.
[nq:1]The ability of an automated system to do that even with fingerprints is fairly recent and even in the case ... if a patient comes in with a gun shot wound or comes to the E.R. suffering from a heroin overdose).[/nq]
I wondered if each dentist has some standard procedure they go through when they get a call from some supposed law-enforcement person who's inquiring about somebody's records.
If you called up some random dentist and pretended to be a police officer asking for a fax of somebody's x-rays, I wonder how many of them who had never received such a call would go ahead and fax them?
[nq:1]So really, things like dental records are useful but it falls into the category of "confirmatory" evidence. It's useful as ... records of that person to see if you get a match. But not particularly useful if you're starting from nothing.[/nq]
Probably not very useful in Britain, I would imagine.

Elroy Willis
www.elroysemporium.com

Dental Records

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