How dead pigs in human clothes are helping solve a major murder mystery in Mexico

In Mexico, the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel is believed to have killed thousands of people. However, the police have hardly ever found their remains. Now, in an innovative method, dead pigs are being used to unearth decomposed bodies. Since 2006, over one hundred thousand people have mysteriously vanished, and all of them have reportedly died at the hands of this cartel. This year in March, about 15,500 were reported missing. The members of the Guerreros Buscadores collective have been working for years to find these people. They have come across charred remains and pieces of clothing on a few occasions, but identifying them has remained an impossible task. The federal research institute CentroGeo regularly employs the latest technology, such as scanners and drones, to find the graves of those killed by the cartel. But now the Jalisco Search Commission is putting on human clothes on dead pigs and burying them to search for the hidden bodies. As strange as it might sound, there is a scientific explanation for this method. Also Read: Owls inspire future aircraft design as rise in turbulence scare fliers. Here is how

Yellow flowers grew where pigs were buried

The idea is to know what a decomposed human dead body buried in the ground would be like. Human DNA and pig DNA are almost 98 per cent similar. Their size and fat distribution, structure and thickness of skin are also almost the same. Experts are using this to their advantage to study the postmortem insect colonisation and other decomposition processes. In one place at the Search Commission’s facility where a pig was buried, scientists noticed yellow flowers blooming. This was because of the phosphorus flowing into the soil from the bodily fluids. In another experiment, scientists connected levels of phosphorus in the soil with decomposition. These yellow flowers indicated that phosphorus was present at the site; hence, they knew that a human grave was likely present around the flowers. Also Read: Discovery of radioactive wasp nest at a Cold War nuclear facility in US triggers fear of a leak

More clues that give away a human grave

Other elements that indicated the site of a grave were the presence of nitrogen and potassium. Drones with hyperspectral cameras that measure light signatures from substances in the ground were used to detect these elements. When contained inside the body, nitrogen is in its organic form. Once the decomposition starts because of fungi and microbes, inorganic nitrogen is returned to the soil as ammonia. Potassium is mostly released when decomposition has just begun. It can be used to search for the remains of those who recently went missing and were killed. Mapping project coordinator José Luis Silván has been following it all. His team also studies the decomposition of pig bodies in real time. They also compare the soil of pig graves with that of human graves.