Fingerprinting?

How did the Ministry know that the finger they found at the scene of Peter Pettigrew's "murder" was his (Peter's)? Is fingerprinting something that is available to investigators via magic or would it have been an educated guess type of situation?

Adding onto this, how would the Ministry investigate murders? Do they use something similar to forensics or is it mostly investigative work?

Heya! Excellent question.

Just speculating here, but I'd definitely think that there'd be some kind of magical fingerprinting process, and that it was used for Pettigrew's finger. I imagine the ministry would have a pretty awesome and well-equipped lab department for forensics. It's not explored a whole lot in the books, but Dumbledore's exploration and study with magical artifacts and the existence of the department of mysteries implies to me that magical forensics could definitely be a plausible thing in the magical world.

On the same thought train, the criminals would also have pretty wonderful methods of getting away with crimes... So the law enforcers would need to be able to match it somehow, right? Again, all just speculation from me.

Thanks for the quick reply!

I can dig all that. Follow-up question: how far would a person need to go to stop anyone from identifying a body?

Specifically, I mean that if they can do fingerprinting (or DNA or similar forensics) would it be something they would have to have some type of data to compare it to (like our fingerprint databases, for example) or could it be done regardless to identify someone?

For example, let's say John Doe killed another wizard. I can think of many, many ways he could go about making the wizard unidentifiable in the Muggle world, but I'm not sure how it would work in the wizarding world. Would disfiguring any recognizable features work some people, or like severing the head and/or fingerprints? Or would it need to elevate to disintigrating the body?

I know it's all just speculation anyways, but I'm just curious how others think it would work. I can elaborate on stuff if need be.

Chipping in!

I'd say something like this used by Barty Crouch Jr would be the practice - of course, one could transfigure the body back, but if nobody knows it's a body in the first place it sounds quite effective!

Transfiguring, disfiguring, destroying the body... all the usual stuff. xD
You'd have to be a pretty skilled witch/wizard, I imagine, but I think any of that could work. I really think it could go either way with the database thing. I feel like there would be ways to determine things about who a person was with magic without having their information in a database. I just don't think an unidentified body would stay unidentified for long. Transfiguring recognisable features might work, but I imagine it would be easier and safer for a murderer to destroy the body in some way afterward.

If you have a specific scenario in mind, feel free to shoot and get more specific feedback

This is slightly off-topic, but depending on what you need the information on destroying evidence on dead bodies for, my character Cezary wanted to point out that he offers body disposal services for a nominal fee on the down low through Capp and Sons Funeral Home. >>

Chipping in!

I'd say something like this used by Barty Crouch Jr would be the practice - of course, one could transfigure the body back, but if nobody knows it's a body in the first place it sounds quite effective!

I completely forgot about that, honestly. That'd be a good method for hiding a body.

If you have a specific scenario in mind, feel free to shoot and get more specific feedback

This could be complicated, just a forewarning.

So BJ here worked as a Curse Breaker for about a year and a half between 19 and 21 years old. He did this under an alias, Colson Baker, which he manufactured through his maternal line. Basically he was a thief; he'd steal small amounts of gold and minor artefacts before they were transported to Gringott's. Obviously with Gringott's being a rather large establishment it wasn't long before he was caught onto. The only actual proof came in the form of a co-worker who followed him into a crypt and caught him moving an artefact out while they were off duty. BJ killed him and used the body to fake his death. I'm trying to poke around and figure out how he could do that. It might even be too far of a stretch, I'm not entirely sure.

One thing I thought of was that he pretty much incinerated the body using the guy's wand and left his clothes/wand behind. The only thing with that is it creates a mystery as to what happened that the body turned to ash but the clothes didn't and what happened to the other guy's body after he 'murdered' 'BJ'. At least as far as any investigation goes, I don't see how far they'd get.

Sorry I'm being really complicated! D: I tend to think plan crazy stuff for histories sometimes, so if this needs to be shot down it's not necessary information, just something I thought up that seemed like something he'd do to protect himself.

This is slightly off-topic, but depending on what you need the information on destroying evidence on dead bodies for, my character Cezary wanted to point out that he offers body disposal services for a nominal fee on the down low through Capp and Sons Funeral Home. >>

I can't see either of those links :p But that's excellent information anyways! This question specifically is mostly related to something where he actually needed the body, but if you don't mind can I use Cezary for this relating to any other bodies he may've had on his hands? He's really not a fan of dealing with these things himself if he can help it.

How about he kills the guy and feeds him to some nasty magical creature down there and leaves his wand and some scraps of clothing?
You'd need to get pretty detailed with something like this in a history, but I'm sure there's a viable way to have him fake his death like this.

How about he kills the guy and feeds him to some nasty magical creature down there and leaves his wand and some scraps of clothing?
You'd need to get pretty detailed with something like this in a history, but I'm sure there's a viable way to have him fake his death like this.

That'd work fine and I can do detail! I figured it'd be something I'd need to explain thoroughly, so that's not an issue. I'm just making sure I'm not overstepping some line that's been drawn somewhere.

Thank you for all of your help concerning this! <33

Adding onto this, how would the Ministry investigate murders? Do they use something similar to forensics or is it mostly investigative work?

If the murder was magical in nature i.e. an Avada Kedavra, slicing curse such as Sectumsempra etc. I personally think it would be realistic to imagine that there are methods which would allow a well enough trained Auror to detect the spells that were used and the magical signature of the murderer. The downside in investigation though would be that unless the Auror knew the murderer (perhaps they're acquaintances or the murderer has committed previous crimes) they would not be able to identify who the unique magical signature they sense belonged to unless they encountered them in the future.

This supposition comes from the fact that we are informed by Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince that he knows Tom Riddle well enough to identity his magic.

If the murder was magical in nature i.e. an Avada Kedavra, slicing curse such as Sectumsempra etc. I personally think it would be realistic to imagine that there are methods which would allow a well enough trained Auror to detect the spells that were used and the magical signature of the murderer. The downside in investigation though would be that unless the Auror knew the murderer (perhaps they're acquaintances or the murderer has committed previous crimes) they would not be able to identify who the unique magical signature they sense belonged to unless they encountered them in the future.

This supposition comes from the fact that we are informed by Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince that he knows Tom Riddle well enough to identity his magic.

That makes sense. Thanks for the info!

One question: as far as knowing specifics about spells, would the Auror need a wand to examine it for details? I remember a spell from the books to detect the last spell a wand was used for. Would an Auror be able to do it without having the wand that cast the spell, or go farther than the last spell that was used?

That makes sense. Thanks for the info!

One question: as far as knowing specifics about spells, would the Auror need a wand to examine it for details? I remember a spell from the books to detect the last spell a wand was used for. Would an Auror be able to do it without having the wand that cast the spell, or go farther than the last spell that was used?

If the Auror/investigator is skilled enough then they shouldn't need the wand of the perpetrator to identify the magic that was used. I imagine that just as each user has a unique magical essence, every spell would also .

As I said though this is purely my own thoughts and suppositions and should be treated with caution until confirmed or denied by a member of the admin team