Police scientists in protective clothing outside a house or in some remote sealed-off wooded area is all too common a sight. A body has been found and it’s someone’s grim task to identify it and to search the scene. Even with modern technology it’s not always easy.

In the past, identification was much more difficult, often impossible, particularly when some murderers went to so much trouble to put authorities off the scent. For example, the Acid Bath Murderer whose victims were poured down the drain; the Jigsaw Killer and the men who had to put the pieces back together; and the man who used a wood chipper for disposing of more than garden waste.

All these killers thought they’d out-smarted the police and scientists but they hadn’t. This is the story of the men and women who worked on these cases.