Talk:Courtney DiLaurentis (Book Character)/@comment-76.25.79.250-20120320172946/@comment-4454233-20120320192715

Good question actually. The A-is-for-Ali ring was found on Courtney's finger, which gives everyone the impression that the body really is Ali. But of course, that's not enough at all. Using dental records is extremely common and the easiest way to identify someone since teeth don't decompose very easily compared to the rest of the body. Testing DNA is more expensive and isn't as commonly used as the dental method because it's tougher to identify 'older' bodies like Courtney's. Plus the dental method is so accurate and specific that you wouldn't really need to use actual DNA if the teeth are intact. Courtney's body was in that ditch for over three years, so she would've been *very* decomposed. Officer Wilden briefly discussed using dental records to ID the body in book 6 or 7. Looking at the dental records would only confirm for them that it was Ali who was killed. Here's why.

Since Courtney was posing as Ali, the latest dental records on file would be of HER teeth and not her sister's. So if the investigators wanted to compare the body's teeth to the latest dental records on Alison DiLaurentis' file, they would logically get one from when she was eleven-thirteen. Courtney posed as her sister for about two years, enough time for her to visit the dentist as Ali DiLaurentis about three or four times. For at least one of those times an X-ray of her teeth would've been taken. So it would've been painfully easy for authorities and the DiLaurentises to 'confirm' that Ali was dead.