Body Farm

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A body farm is generally referred to as an area on which scientific studies on post-mortem changes in humans , i.e. on the decomposition processes of corpses , can be carried out in the open air. To date, there are very few such institutions in the world, four of them in the United States of America , one in the Netherlands and one in Australia. The anthropologist Shamshad (Roma) Khan plans to set up a body farm in India under the name Investigative Scientific & Anthropological Analysis Facility (INSAAF) .

University of Tennessee Body Farm

Basics

In a narrower sense, the term Body Farm means a site belonging to the University of Tennessee . Officially, the approximately 12,000 square meter site is called the Anthropological Research Facility (ARF) . The wooded property is a few miles from the University of Knoxville, Tennessee campus and is maintained by the Department of Anthropology . This is related to the fact that in the United States autopsies are performed by medical specialists in pathology . Most of them have additional training in forensic medicine and are therefore called forensic pathologists . A forensic doctor in Germany, on the other hand, does not necessarily have to be a pathologist . The well-secured area may only be entered by scientists, primarily anthropologists and criminologists as well as voluntary body donors.

The Tennessee site

The site itself was originally a landfill until it was repurposed in 1971 by forensic anthropologist William M. Bass . Until 2006 it was the only open-air laboratory in the world where scientists could study the decay of human corpses. For example, the effects of type of death, age, gender, weather or the storage of corpses on the rate of decomposition are examined. The decomposition process is documented, the corpses are photographed by digital cameras every six hours, while boundary conditions such as air temperature or humidity are recorded at the same time. In collaboration with scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory , odor samples are taken and then analyzed for their composition by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry . Entomologists examine the colonization of the corpses by insects. The site is also used to train FBI special agents , who complete a basic forensic entomology course as part of their training. This outdoor recovery course was originally held at the FBI Academy in Quantico , Virginia , but fell victim to a budget cut.

There are always around 40 corpses in various stages of decomposition on the body farm. Despite the relatively restrictive conditions - no infectious diseases, assumption of transport costs only within a radius of 200 miles  - the number of body donations exceeds the faculty's annual requirement. Completely decomposed corpses are removed from the site as part of an annual clean-up party . The skeletons are either buried or added to the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection , the world's largest collection of skeletons, depending on the donor's will .

After William M. Bass retired , Murray Marks took over his duties, with Richard Jantz, who was once a Humboldt fellow in Germany , officially responsible . Various artifacts from Bass's time still exist today, such as a large, hand-painted sign with his private telephone number and two typical US mailboxes that Bass put up for "Post".

Mention in the media

This first and for a long time the only body farm is described in various non-fiction books, mentioned in novels, there are two documentaries and it was the location of two popular television series:

  • In the book Death's Acre (German title: The Bone Reader ) the founder William M. Bass describes together with the documentary filmmaker and author Jon Jefferson in 20 chapters the development of the facility in detail and reports on exciting cases.
  • The criminal biologist Mark Benecke , known in Germany, visited the Body Farm in March 2002 and describes his experiences in the book Murder Methods. Investigations by the world's most famous forensic biologist . In his newsletter Benecke writes:

“By the way, the author had to be amazed when he pulled away one of the loose corpse covers on the“ Body Farm ”. A very considerable swarm of flies was buzzing, but instead of the expected stage of putrefaction, an almost untouched, waxy corpse lay in the grass. It was an "embalmed" body (filled with preservatives) [...] "

- Mark Benecke in Sero News. 7, 2002, p. 58.
  • Another visitor was the author Mary Roach , she describes her impressions in a chapter of her book Stiff. The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers .
  • The main character of the author Patricia Cornwell , Kay Scarpetta, needs the help of the facility to solve a murder case in the crime novel Body Farm .
  • Simon Beckett used the Body Farm as inspiration for his thrillers The Chemistry of Death and Corpse pallor .
  • Writer and documentary filmmaker Jon Jefferson directed two documentaries about the Body Farm, Biography of a Corpse and Anatomy of a Corpse , for the National Geographic Channel .
  • The WDR documentary Things You Can Do When You Are Dead (2007) deals with the Body Farm for a long time.
  • The shooting of the CSI episode Burden of Proof and the Dead Zone episode Coming Home took place on the premises of the Body Farm.
  • The photographer Sally Mann visited a body farm as part of her project “What Remains” in 2002. The artist used a photographic process from the 19th century ( dry plate ) to remove the sharpness of the photographs of the corpses and the subject of transience in the images to emphasize. The large-format photographs taken during the project were first exhibited in the Gagosian Gallery in New York and subsequently also in Helsinki , where the exhibition sparked a controversy about the display of photographed corpses.
  • The American artist Taryn Simon (born 1975) photographed the rotting corpse of a boy on a body farm as part of her series of photographs "An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar" from 2003–2007.
  • The Rizzoli & Isles episode "Against Time" (Deadly Harvest), in the fourth episode of season 6, deals with the body farm.

Collections and Research

William M. Bass Forensic Skeletal Collection

The William Bass Forensic Skeletal Collection for research and teaching was created in the 1970s during his tenure as a state forensic anthropologist and consists of over 100 skeletons. A few individuals have been identified, while most of the skeletons in this collection remain unknown. Different types of post-mortem trauma such as gunshot wounds, stab wounds, cuts and injuries from blunt violence are represented in this collection. Most of the skeletal finds come from Tennessee.

William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection

This skeleton collection was founded in 1981 under the direction of Bass and currently includes over 700 individuals of all ages and is growing steadily. Areas of research that benefit from this collection range from skeletal biology and forensic medicine to dental, biomedical and genetic fields. The demographic profile includes mostly people of American, European, African and Hispanic descent.

Forensic Anthropology Data Bank

The Forensic Anthropology Data Bank was established in 1986 with a grant from the National Institute of Justice established. The FDB contains extensive demographic information on many cases, including cranial ("towards the skull") and postcranial ("behind the skull") trauma, congenital characteristics, and dental changes. In addition, 3D-coordinated data is currently being collected for cases that are analyzed on the body farms.

Western Carolina University Body Farm

The second Body Farm was established in 2006 at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee (North Carolina) and is part of the Western Carolina Human Identification Laboratory . Scientific studies on decomposition processes are also carried out on this site. Another purpose is to train corpse tracking dogs.

Texas State University Body Farm

The forensic anthropology research facility was recently commissioned by Texas State University and is under the direction of Michelle Hamilton, a former student of Bill Bass. The Body Farm is fully functional and will become part of the Forensic Anthropology Center in Texas (FACTS) . The facility received a donation of $ 100,000 from the esteemed Emeritus Professor of Texas State University to enable the construction of the adjacent laboratory. The development of the facility was realized with the help of Jerry Melbye.

Objections from the locals and the nearby San Marcos Municipal Airport before the site was selected halted it because they were concerned about the circling vultures. But on February 12, 2008, Texas State University announced the vacant ranch, located at 213 County Road in north San Marcos, as a new area of ​​the facility.

Sam Houston State University

The Southeast Texas Applied Forensic Science Facility aka. STAIFS is a state-of-the-art research and training facility with a focus on applying forensic knowledge to human bodies. In addition, vast amounts of evidence are extracted through careful identification, collection and storage. The facility is recognized by the Anatomical Board of Texas and accepts donations of human bodies for scientific purposes. The institute trains students, law enforcement officers, academics and forensic specialists.

The faculty is at the center of the Sam Houston State University's biology department: an area of ​​150 acres that borders the Sam Houston National Forest and even provides a river basin. One hectare of the high security fence surrounds the outdoor research facility with an additional, lightly secured area for other forensic training, such as B. Search and maintenance maneuver covering 8 hectares. Web cams are installed in the outdoor area that record the length of time various autopsy activities and broadcast them to computers on campus and independent computers.

The building is designed like a morgue, consisting of cold stores and freezers, modern morgue equipment and tools as well as digital X-ray machines and microscopes.

The environment in south east Texas is very different from that in east Texas. East Texas has an average annual temperature of 19 ° C (67 ° F). In Houston, however, it is 75 ° F (23 ° C). In addition to the temperature, other factors also play a major role in the decay process, so that other decay results can arise.

Other bodies

Investigation of decomposition processes in a buffalo

There have been other proposals for body farms to be opened in other locations in the US and elsewhere. Few of them have been successful so far; For example, a facility in Las Vegas was planned in 2003, but was unable to secure funding. Roma Khan from India is currently taking the first steps to build a "body farm" in their home country, based on the original in the USA.

literature

  • William M. Bass, Jon Jefferson: Death's Acre. Berkley Books, New York 2004, ISBN 0-425-19832-4 .
  • William M. Bass, Jon Jefferson: The Bone Reader. Goldmann, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-442-15394-7 .
  • Mark Benecke: Murder Methods. Investigations by the most famous forensic biologists in the world. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2002, ISBN 978-3-442-15394-7 .
  • Mary Roach: Stiff. The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Norton, New York 2003, ISBN 0-393-32482-6 .
  • Patricia Cornwell: Body Farm. Goldmann, Munich 2008, ISBN 3-442-46104-9
  • Simon Beckett: The Chemistry of Death. Rowohlt Paperback, 2007, ISBN 3-499-24197-8
  • Simon Beckett: corpse pallor. Wunderlich, 2009, ISBN 3-8052-0866-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Forum report on police investigation ( memento of the original dated December 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.apug.org
  2. ↑ ted.com