Dead Men Do Tell Tales Quotes

“Interstate highways are the veins and arteries by which crime circulates in America. Serial killers seem to float through them like blood cells, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Crimes committed along interstate highways ought to be considered extraterritorially, apart from the normal rules of geography, and separate from a state's good name. These huge highways form a kind of fifty-first state of their own, a state whose flower is the deadly nightshade and whose state bird is the vulture.”
― William R. Maples, Dead Men Do Tell Tales: The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist

“Taceant Colloquia. Effugiat Risus. Hic Locus Est Ubi Mors Gaudet Succurrere Vitae. [Let idle talk be silenced. Let laughter be banished. Here is the place where Death delights to succour Life.]”
― William R. Maples, Dead Men Do Tell Tales: Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist

“The instruments of murder are as manifold as the unlimited human imagination. Apart from the obvious—shotguns, rifles, pistols, knives, hatchets and axes—I have seen meat cleavers, machetes, ice picks, bayonets, hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, crowbars, pry bars, two-by-fours, tree limbs, jack handles (which are not “tire irons;” nobody carries tire irons anymore), building blocks, crutches, artificial legs, brass bedposts, pipes, bricks, belts, neckties, pantyhose, ropes, bootlaces, towels and chains—all these things and more, used by human beings to dispatch their fellow human beings into eternity. I have never seen a butler use a candelabrum. I have never seen anyone use a candelabrum! Such recherché elegance is apparently confined to England. I did see a pair of sneakers used to kill a woman, and they left distinctive tread marks where the murderer stepped on her throat and crushed the life from her. I have not seen an icicle used to stab someone, though it is said to be the perfect weapon, because it melts afterward. But I do know of a case in which a man was bludgeoned to death with a frozen ham. Murderers generally do not enjoy heavy lifting—though of course they end up doing quite a bit of it after the fact, when it is necessary to dispose of the body—so the weapons they use tend to be light and maneuverable. You would be surprised how frequently glass bottles are used to beat people to death. Unlike the “candy-glass” props used in the movies, real glass bottles stand up very well to blows. Long-necked beer bottles, along with the heavy old Coca-Cola and Pepsi bottles, make formidable weapons, powerful enough to leave a dent in a wooden two-by-four without breaking. I recall one case in which a woman was beaten to death with a Pepsi bottle, and the distinctive spiral fluting of the bottle was still visible on the broken margins of her skull. The proverbial “lead pipe” is a thing of the past, as a murder weapon. Lead is no longer used to make pipes.”
― William R. Maples, Dead Men Do Tell Tales: Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist

“All the medical examiners in the state of Florida are forensic pathologists with medical degrees.”
― William R. Maples, Dead Men Do Tell Tales: Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist

“Gee, I’m not used to looking at these without the meat on them!”
― William R. Maples, Dead Men Do Tell Tales: Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist