Dental records, fingerprints and… breast implants?
Amid the shabby recent tale of the suicide of a man suspected of murdering his former wife in California, a detail caught my eye. The woman in question, Jasmine Fiore, was identified by the serial number on her breast implants.
I’m not too interested in the background to the tale – much has been made of Ryan Jenkins’ past appearances in VH1 reality show Megan Wants A Millionaire, while Fiore’s job as a swimwear model (or Playboy model, Vegas stripper or any number of summary epithets) seems only scarcely relevant – though not to newspaper or magazine editors, ever mindful that pictures of attractive blonde women will always attract readers.
Nor am I particularly intrigued by Jenkins going on the run once the dismembered body of his wife was discovered – it’s the sort of story more suited to supermarket tabloids, and unless one was familiar with the people in question (which I wasn’t) it is, sad to say, just another tale of violence and murder involving people on the periphery of celebrity, albeit shocking in its detail. Let them be.
However, this caught my eye in The Guardian’s report:
The body was discovered crammed inside a blood-soaked suitcase by a man searching for recyclable objects. The victim had been beaten and the fingers and teeth had all been removed from the body – presumably to hinder identification. Fiore was eventually identified by forensics detectives by tracing the serial number on her breast implants.
I’d never thought about silicone implants carrying unique serial numbers, let alone being used to identify the bodies of murder victims. Perhaps this has been used for some time – I don’t follow the latest trends in homicide investigations, but it seems like an interesting cultural shift. Fingerprints and dental records have been used for some time in postmortem identifications. Who could have predicted, even 20 or 30 years ago, that a woman’s breasts could be used as a reliable means of identifying her?