Adventures in Body Farms

I thought I'd use this post to tell you all about the beginnings of body farms - how on earth did someone come up with the idea? The idea was first developed by anthropologist Dr. William M. Bass.  In 1977 Dr Bass was called to investigate when the civil war grave of Confederate officer Lieutenant Colonel William Shy was discovered to have been disturbed.  The grave had been dug up and a headless body was found sitting on top of the antique coffin.  Dr Bass forst concluded that that due to the state of the remains the body had been there less than a year.  The coffin below was empty, but Dr Bass knew that after 100 years in the damp Tennessee soil, the body, includig the bones, would be expected to completely break down.  Further investigation by Dr Bass, however, prooved conclusively that the remains were in fact those of Lt Col Shy. Because of this miscalculation Dr Bass realised that there was a lack of knowledge in t...

Hello again  A lot of work has gone into planning my trip to the Human Taphonomy Facilities.  As part of my preparation I attended a conference at University College London on 'Does the UK need a Body Farm?' Ready to take notes! Dr Anna Williams of Huddersfield University introduced us to Body Farms and what they are, and why we are campaigning for one in the UK. Speakers included Dr Jamie Pringle of Keele University who spoke to us about geophysics research and how it can help when trying to find buried human remains.  There are various methods used, including ground penetrating radar (think Time Team).  Studies in this area would be greatly improved if they could use human remains to search - we need to be able to research what human remains 'look' like when searched for using geophysical methods. Dr Lorna Irish, from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, spoke about the training of Victim Recovery (VR) Dogs.  At present VR dog...

Hi everyone!  Thanks for coming to read my blog.  I'll use this first post to tell you a bit about myself & what I'm doing here.   I'm a Crime Scene Coordinator with the police in the UK, and this year I have been awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travelling Fellowship in order to visit Human Taphonomy Facilites (commonly known as Body Farms) in Knoxville Tennessee and Sydney.  The visits aren't for fun, though I'm sure I'll have a good time when I get there; I'm going to research how HTFs are run, and what the challenges are in running them. So - Why am I doing this ? HTFs are used in order to study how human remains decompose in different circumstances.  This can be very important in police and forensic settings, as knowing how long a body has been there, or if it has been moved post mortem, can be vital when we are investigating murders.  We can be looking for changes in the appearance of the body, as well as chemical differences,...