Academics: Mobster Claim About Dissolving Corpses Doubtful

Gambino hit man Charles Carneglia, now

serving life,  found unorthodox uses for

sulfuric acid.

Forensic scientists this month cast doubt on the claim by some Mafia members that they’ve used sulfuric acid to dissolve the corpses of their victims in less than a half hour, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.

Massimo Grillo, of the University of Palermo, in Italy, told fellow attendees at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences that Mafia testimony about using acid to dissolve corpses in under 20 minutes is difficult to believe, reported ScienceNews. Lab tests using pig carcasses showed that sulfuric acid plus water could dissolve muscle and cartilage within 12 hours. It took an additional two days to turn bone to dust.

Reputed mob hitman Charles Carneglia dissolved a murder victim's body in acid - and tossed the man's finger bones into another gangster's soup as proof, the feds charged during Carneglia's 2009 trial for which he was sentenced to life for killing four people.

"The nightmarish account is described in the government's last-ditch bid to convince Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Jack Weinstein to let cooperating witnesses testify that Carneglia used acid to get rid of bodies for the Gambino crime family," reported an article in the New York Daily News during the trial.

"... Weinstein ordered no mention of the word "acid" because it would unfairly prejudice the jury against Carneglia ..."

It didn't help the aging gangster anyway.