Gabriel Wortman used lime & acid to dissolve murdered victims bodies? Yes - and No

John George Haigh dissolved his victims in acid 

It is difficult even for meat-rendering industry to fully dissolve animal bodies - bones & all - even with high pressure -high heat - high tech solutions.

It is much much harder for ordinary individuals to try to do so, though having a large rural property, like Gabriel Wortman, makes it much easier but not fool proof.

Witnesses have told the RCMP and others that Wortman had large quantities of acid and lime on his property to destroy the bodies of people he killed.

(One chemical is much faster at dissolving flesh - the other much better at dissolving bones : hence the need for the two.)

Now these dangerous chemicals are not easily bought in large amounts without leaving a paper trail for police to find and courts to later convict upon.

Nevertheless, this chemist tried to find out how likely were tales of murderers successfully dissolving bodies really were.

He found it very difficult : the process takes a long time at ordinary temperatures & pressures, the acids & bases smell strongly as does the body itself. Spouses, friends, neighbours are likely to smell sometimes not quite right during the long process.

Often murderers who tried this approach were eventually caught and convicted - we obviously can’t estimate the number of those who got away with it.

Only if the victim had no known connection to the murderer would it seem for that to be possible - the paper trail and the physical trail always remains after the deed is done.

Back to Wortman : an isolated building on a large rural property obviously helps.

But even so, something always remains - and again the vast expanses of rural wilderness might help you dispose a bit of remains here and there.

So it remains a possibility that Wortman did murder before April 18th and he did successfully dissolve of their remains.

This is not merely a pointless exercise for some - over the years, people did go missing in the area around Wortman’s Portapique home and their bodies never found.

The most recent one was a man named Walsh, who disappeared mere weeks before the massive region-wide RCMP raid on organized banker gang drug operations.

Until Walsh’s body is found or somebody arrested and convicted in his death, this sort of speculation will continue.

And SHOULD continue - in my opinion...