Transcript Death`s Acre Inside the Body Farm

Death’s Acre
Inside the Body Farm
By Dr. Bill Bass and John
Jefferson
Dr. Bill Bass
A forensic
anthropologist.
Dr. Bill Bass
• Assisted with hundreds of cases for the FBI and
numerous other law-enforcement agencies.
• He created the world's first laboratory devoted to
human decomposition: the University of
Tennessee's Anthropology Research Facility.
• He has written or coauthored more than two
hundred scientific publications, many based on
murder cases and other mysteries he has
helped to prosecute or solve.
Aerial View of the Body Farm
The Body Farm
• Really called the
Anthropology
Research Facility
• University of
Tennessee and Dr.
Bass set it up.
• Used to study
decaying bodies and
time of death.
What is a Forensic Anthropologist?
• Forensic Anthropology is the examination
of human skeletal remains.
• A forensic anthropologist will study and
examine human remains.
• They will determine the
manner of death,
not the cause of death.
What does a forensic
anthropologist do?
• Go to a crime scene to assist in the collection of
human remains.
• Cleans up the bones so they can be looked at.
• Analyzes skeletal remains to figure out who they
are.
• Looks at the trauma on the bones to establish
the pathway of a bullet or the # of stab wounds.
• Works with a dentist to match dental records.
• Testifies in court about the identity of the
individual and/or their injuries.
What does a forensic
anthropologist NOT do?
•
•
•
•
•
Collect trace evidence (hair, fibers)
Run DNA tests
Analyze ballistic or weapon evidence
Analyze blood splatter
Conduct autopsies
How is it all done?
• Before you can tell who someone was and
how they died, you must figure out the “Big
Four”
– Sex
– Race
– Age
– Stature (body height)
Female Skulls
• Tend to be smaller than
males.
• Mouth is narrow and chin
is pointed
• Eye orbits have sharp
edges.
• Forehead is smooth
• Lack the bony bump on
occipital lobe
Male Skulls
• Tends to be bigger
than female
• Contains brow ridges
• Has a bony bump
called the external
occipital protuberance
at the base of the
skull
Other ways to determine sex…
• Pelvis
– Female - after puberty, the hipbone gradually
broadens and the pubic bone gets longer and
angles farther forward to form more of an arch
for the birth canal.
• Femur
– Female – incline slightly inward beneath the
hips
– Male – hang roughly straight down below the
hips
Using Skull to Determine RACE
• African Americans teeth and jawbone jut
forward. Their bones are ivory like, sheen, and
smooth. They are usually denser than
Caucasian bones.
• The test…
– Holding the skull in your hand, take a pencil and
press one end between the upper lip and the base of
the nose. Holding that end in place, swivel the pencil
downward. If it contacts the lips and teeth, but not the
chin, the skull is probable African American. If you
can touch both the base of the nasal opening and the
tip of the chin, the skull is probably Caucasian.
KNEE
• The knees of African
Americans have more
space between the
condyles than the
knees of Caucasians.
Teeth and Clavicle determine AGE.
• If the third molars (wisdom teeth) have
erupted, it is virtually certain that the
individual was 18 or older.
• The sternal end of clavicle, where the
collarbone joins the breastbone, fuses at
about age 25.
Pubic Symphysis to determine
AGE
The look of this bone changes from
adolescence to age 50.
– Teen: bumpy
– 20 to 30: smoothes out
– 40: face begins to erode and acquires a
porous spongy look
(If don’t have pelvis, can look at the cranial
sutures in the skull. They begin to fuse at
about age 25)
Determining HEIGHT using the
FEMUR
• Mildred Trotter and Goldine Gleser Formula
(1958)
• You measure the length of the femur and plug it
into a formula and it will tell you how tall the
person was.
What happens to bones in a fire?
• The arms and legs go
first because they are
thin and surrounded
by oxygen.
• As they burn the skin
becomes blackened
and the fat begins to
sizzle. Within
minutes the skin splits
open and flesh begins
to burn.
The limbs “move”?
• When the flesh begins to burn,
– the hands and feet clench
– The arms curl up toward the shoulders
– The legs spread slightly apart with the knees
flexed.
• Does this because the flexors are stronger
than the extensors. As the fire cooks and
dries out the muscles and tendons of the
body, they shirk and the flexors overpower
the extensors.
Burned Skull
•The skull is a sealed vessel filled with fluid
and moist brain tissue.
•Moisture reaches boiling point and creates
pressure in the cranium.
•If there is no bullet wound, for the pressure
to leak out, the skull can literally burst,
fracturing the cranium into numerous pieces,
each about the size of a quarter.
Burned Bones
• At low temperature, a house fire will turn long
bones into black or caramel – colored and leave
them intact.
• At high temperature, arson fire fueled by
gasoline, can reach 2000 degrees and bones
can undergo a chemical and structural change.
– The carbon in the bones burns and what is left behind
is called “calcined.” These bones might still have
their shape, but they have very little weight and are
gray in color.