National Geographic - Secrets of the Body Farm

>>[narration] You're watching
National Geographic Channel Presents.

There's a place so ghastly and grotesque
that most people recoil in horror,

but these acres, filled with decaying
human flesh actually save lives.

This is a training ground
for forensic specialists,

solving murders one corpse at a time,
unlocking the secrets of the body farm.

[dog barking]

>>[Steve Sims] It's pretty
dark out here.

>>[narration] A skeleton
uncovered in Memphis.

>>[Sims] Maybe we can find a grease spot
where the actual body is decomposed.

>>[narration] A family,
murdered in Mississippi,

a body stashed
in a Las Vegas locker.

Real crimes, with real consquences.

>>[Sims] We got a rib,
we got a right scapula.

>>[narration] What's the connection
between these grisly discoveries?

Real CSI. Scientists, turned
crime scene investigators,

dramatized on a hit TV series,
but what do they really do?

>>[Sims] Did the skull look
small to you too?

>>[woman] Ready?
Let's get him to the ground.

>>[narration] And where do
they learn their trade?

Welcome to ground zero in
the field of forensic anthropology,

a unique outdoor classroom,
where the subject is death,

and more than half the CSI units working
in the US today have been trained.

Founded by Dr. Bill Bass of the University
of Tennessee more than 25 years ago,

research conducted within these
few wooded acres in Knoxville

has redefined the frontiers
of forensic science.

>>[Dr. Bill Bass] The anthropology
research facility,

what most people call the "body farm,"
is a research facility that I set up

to begin to look at the decay and
the rates of decay in human bodies.

Like many anthropologists,
Bass started out studying ancient bones.

His expertise eventually led to his helping
the police with modern day murder victims.

>>[Bass] You know, we kill our friends
and neighbors by many different means,

and a lot of people are shot
or bludgeoned or stabbed.

My orientation was what happens to a body
when it decays and how long does it take?

>>[narration] He learned to read
bones for signs of trauma,

knife marks in ribs,
unusual fractures in skulls.

Drawing on unclaimed bodies
from county morgues,

he built an extensive
collection of skeletons,

but early in his career, Bass realized that
bones weren't the only source of clues.

Decomposing flesh had
secrets to reveal as well.

>>[Bass] I got a call one afternoon, it was
between Christmas and New Years--

it was cold-- from the Williamson County
Sherriff's office,

telling me that they had a grave that had
been disturbed, would I come and help?

So I get over there. This is a family
cemetery, back of a home.

>>[narration] Someone had broken
into the earth, near a headstone.

Just beneath the surface, a headless male
corpse. The remains looked fairly fresh.

Police needed to know how fresh.
Had a new body been added to an old grave?

Dr. Bass agreed the body was in good shape,
pink flesh still clung to the bones.

>>[Bass] I looked at it, I said you have
a 24 to 28 year old white male

who's been dead about a year.

>>[narration] But something didn't add up.
Bass kept digging,

ultimately identifying the body
as Colonel William Shy,

a rebel officer killed in the Civil War,
buried in an air-tight cast iron coffin,

the corpse had been
incredibly well-preserved.

Bass's original assessment had
been off by more than a century.

>>[Bass] People wonder why
I started a body farm.

It's because of a couple of
experiences like that,

that make you realize that, you know, you
really don't know much about decay rates,

and we need to do
something about that.

>>[narration] By now, more than
four hundred human corpses

have decomposed
at the body farm,

every phase documented
under a wide range of conditions.

Some critics say letting corpses
decay here is irreverent,

but the scientists insist the dead
are held in the highest respect.

>>[Dr. Murray Marks] It's important to
remember that the anthropology department,

the forensics center doesn't
own these bodies.

They're a gift to us to study
decomposition, but if the day comes

and families ever decide that they
want them, they belong to them.

>>[Robin Miller] I always try and
take a minute and say thank you,

because without them,
we wouldn't be able to do

any of this research and
this place would not exist.

>>[narration] There's no doubt that the
work done here is incredibly valuable,

resulting in the convictions of
countless violent criminals

who may have
otherwise walked free.

And those bodies,
so generously donated,

are put to good use in earnest
efforts to protect the living.

>>[Bass] We've looked at decaying bodies
in various scenarios:

clothing, no clothing, sun, shade,
buried, not buried, water, trunks of cars.

We've been able to establish
a sequence of events

that occurs under
all of these conditions.

>>[Robin Miller] You can
see all through here,

where it's all decayed,
and we've got some more bugs.

>>[Marks] Forensic anthropology
and forensic entomology

really take off from right here
where we're walking.

I mean this is, in a sense, ground zero
where this particular research takes place.

>>[Robin Miller] It's interesting,
because they say okay... [fades out]

>>[narration] Dr. Murray Marks is one of the
thousands who have studied at the facility.

Now he's on the faculty,
guiding the research

of a new generation of scientists.

>>[Dr. Murray Marks] When I see remains
like this, I'm always reminded that this

is such a unique laboratory,
because where else can we study

this whole process
of decomposition?

We're there to speak for the victim,
for the people that don't have a voice.

By doing that, we get
ever closer to the truth,

and ever closer to making
someone pay for their crime.

>>[narration] The body farm's
many successes has

spread the facility's
influence far and wide.

A new program called
the National Forensic Academy

allows police and lab technicians from
throughout the United States

to hone their skills amid a
cornucopia of fresh bodies,

decomposing corpses,
and overgrown skeletons.

>>[Dr. Lee Jantz] If at any time you
have a problem, I strongly recommend

you turn around
and take a deep breath. Okay?

It is not a pleasant thing.
It is something that you have to face

at some point in your careers.

>>[narration] In a wooded corner of the
facility, the scientists have scattered

a mixture of human bones,
animal bones, bullet casings,

and other
simulated evidence.

Stained by time, soil, and weather,
and hidden by leaves,

the scattered bones
are difficult to find,

just as they would be
at an actual crime scene.

Sorting through human remains can be an
unsettling task, even for professionals.

>>[Robin Miller] Sometimes that
whiff is just too much.

>>[narration] Next: how to find
a murder victim when the body

is already buried six feet under.

National Geographic Channel
Presents will be right back.

Now, back to National Geographic
Channel Presents.

The secrets of the body farm aren't
reserved solely for human students.

Most cadaver dogs are trained
to find corpses

with synthetic samples
that smell like decay.

Here, dogs are able to practice on
multiple human bodies,

in varying states of decomposition.

>>[dog handler] What you got?
You find something?

>>[narration] They're taught to lie down
or bark when they find human remains.

>>[dog handler] Oh, good girl.
What you got? Show me.

Good girl. Ready?
Want to find some more?

>>[narration] Finding corpses on
the surface is just a warm-up.

>>[dog handler] Out here.

>>[narration] The dogs move on to a series of
concrete slabs for the graduate course.

Under the yellow arrows, a researcher has
buried corpses and other debris.

[dog barks]

>>[dog handler] Very good!

>>[narration] Success is rewarded
immediately, to reinforce

every dog's complete
attention to the task.

Jane Survey is in the early stages of
training her dog to indicate a discovery.

>>[Jane Survey] While there's
such overwhelming scents,

we want them to concentrate and
indicate on every one they find.

What can happen, especially in early
stages of training in something like this,

is that they would go from one source,
to another source,

to another source
without indicating.

This is a great opportunity because
it tells them every single one,

indicate immediately,
then go on to the next.

>>[to dog] You did very good,
you're a smart dog!

Find it.

[dog barks]

If you saw her head--
Flora, show me.

[dog barks]
No, you show me. Yes, good dog!

When she got over here,
her breathing changes,

and if you watch them
very closely you can tell that.

It's almost like they inhale
and then they stop breathing,

because they're
processing the scent.

Good dog!
Are you the smartest girl?

>>[narration] Even the best cadaver dogs can
have a difficult time locating some corpses.

The body farm is the perfect lab for
developing new technologies

that can help locate
human remains.

>>[Bass] We have a problem in the United
States of the husband and wife,

one of them gets mad,
kills the other one,

they take them out in the
backyard and bury them.

Then they pour a concrete slab
over them and it's hard to find.

>>[narration] This is an experimental
ground-penetrating radar system, GPRS.

On loan from the US government,
it's one of only two units

of this GPR model in the world.

It's been developed to locate dinosaur
bones, find unexploded artillery shells,

and reveal hidden bodies.

The system is about the size
and weight of a weedwhacker,

but it's packed with
powerful electronics.

Beneath these concrete paths at the
anthropology research facility,

lie seven human bodies.

Michelle Miller buried the bodies at
depths ranging from one foot to six feet.

What would a body look like at each depth?
Could the radar see through cement?

And would a body under cement
look different from a body under dirt?

>>[Michelle Miller] I want to see the difference
between cement and actual-- just the clay.

The head of one individual
is right here,

and the head of the other
individual is right there,

and hopefully I'll be able to see the
definite difference of the GPR

shooting through the
cement versus the non cement.

>>[narration] Miller didn't stop there,
she added other variables.

Could the system distinguish between
a fresh corpse and a bare skeleton?

Or between a body and rubble?

>>[Michelle Miller] I want to see if it
could really differentiate, you know,

between a definite
individual and not.

What I did is I buried one
individual on this side of the pad.

On the other side of the pad,
I actually made a mock-up.

I used plastic buckets, metal buckets,
two-by-fours, and metal tubing,

and actually built a body.

>>[Bass] What we're trying to do is to
match a situation like you're getting

in terrorist attacks now, where you get
not only the people being blown up,

but you get all of the building or
the surroundings filled in with them.

Can you distinguish a body under
all of that, what you may call "noise,"

if you want to say that,
or something is confusing the picture.

>>[narration] The system's field display
shows little detail,

just a series of swirls and squiggles,
representing different densities.

Miller wants to know if those
patterns can be read as bodies.

Back at the lab, the data is downloaded
into a more sophisticated computer

to enhance the display.

The display shows a cross-section
cutaway of the earth.

A red band across the top
shows the concrete,

dense, but transparent
as a windowpane to the GPRS.

Beneath that, disturbed soil,
which yields uniform signals of green.

Then, two feet down,
the signals go crazy,

matching the size and shape
of the body hidden there.

Once a body's been found,
the detective work truly begins.

The one piece of evidence everyone wants?
Time since death.

>>[Bass] The police don't
ask you "Who is that?"

They ask you "How long
have they been there?"

Now I didn't have any
experience with maggots,

so I looked in the literature, and
there was very little in the literature.

So I decided this was an area
that we needed to do research on.

We need to find out what happens
in the decay stages of human individuals.

>>[narration] In the 1980s,
Bass and a graduate student began

charting the order and the
timing of insect activity in corpses.

Most numerous
were blow flies.

Iridescent flies that could
sniff out a body within seconds.

Each female blow fly laid eggs
by the hundreds,

usually in natural body
openings or bloody wounds.

In summertime, the eggs could
hatch in just two hours,

the resulting larvae, maggots
soon formed a writhing, flesh-eating mass.

The maggots were nourished to maturity
by the proteins and lipids in the flesh.

Some two weeks later, they formed
pupa casings, or cocoons.

A few days later, a new generation
of adult flies emerged

from those pupa casings,
and the cycle began anew.

Other insects joined the
post-mortem food chain.

Yellow jackets fed on blow fly eggs,
and beetles nibbled cartilage off bones.

But the key players were
blow flies and their maggots.

>>[Neal Haskell] Then we can go to the
proper charts... [fades out]

>>[narration] The studies provided crucial
data to scientists like Neal Haskell,

a forensic entomologist, who teaches
at St. Joseph's College in Indiana.

He also testifies in murder trials.

Coming up: a brutal and mysterious
murder of a young family.

Could insect activity
crack the case?

Find out when Secrets
of the Body Farm continues.

You're watching National Geographic
Channel Presents.

The expert testimony of forensic
entomologist Neal Haskell,

trained at the body farm,
proved crucial as a grisly case

unfolded in Las Vegas, Nevada.

People renting storage space in a
mini warehouse had noticed a nasty smell.

>>[Neal Haskell] Adjacent neighbors
that had their storage in there,

they're complaining to the management,
"Something really stinks around here,

and it's time to get to the bottom of it."
Well, they got a warrant to investigate,

and then opened the storage unit up,
found the garbage can in there,

popped it open, and here is an absolutely
disgustingly decomposing individual.

>>[narration] The body, mostly
liquified, was an elderly woman.

Her daughter had rented the
storage unit two years before.

The daughter told police her
mother had died unexpectedly.

Grief-stricken, she stored the body
while pondering funeral arrangements.

But Haskell learned a
different story from the bugs,

specifically from
the coffin flies.

They're tiny, about the size of gnats, but
they boldly go where other flies can't:

deep underground.

It's a highly-evolved
survival strategy.

Underground, they have
a feast to themselves.

>>[Haskell] Coffin Flies got their name by
their very tenacious ability to identify

where humans were buried
in the wooden coffins.

They can burrow up to four to
five feet in the soil,

access the coffins, and then lay their
eggs, and they do their lifecycle there.

>>[narration] It didn't surprise Haskell
to find coffin flies in the container.

What surprised him was not finding
blow flies, death's quickest opportunists.

>>[Haskell] Blow flies can come in within
the first seconds to minutes,

and if the temperatures
are warm enough,

you'll see them laying eggs
within the first hour.

>>[narration] But Haskell found
no traces of blow flies.

No flies, no eggs, no blow fly maggots.
The blow flies hadn't gotten to the body.

Haskell wondered why. Then it hit him:
there wasn't time.

>>[Haskell] Mom wasn't left laying
around for a number of days.

Mom was processed very, very quickly,
placed in that garbage can,

and put in that storage area.

>>[narration] The evidence convinced the jury
that the defendant killed her mother

and moved swiftly to hide the body.
The sentence: life in prison, no parole.

Since its inception, the body farm
has conclusively connected insect activity

with body decomposition,
allowing prosecutors

to bring countless
criminals to justice.

Just as an archaeologist can tell
how long ago a civilization ended

by sifting through generations of rubble,
a forensic entomologist can estimate

how long ago a life ended by combing
through generations of insects.

>>[Bass] One of the ways of determining the
length of time is to gather the maggots.

You want to gather the largest maggots,
because that indicates the first hatch,

and it would be a better indication of
how long that individual has been dead.

Up to about 14 to 21 days, depending on
the temperature and environmental

situation in which
the death occurred.

>>[narration] Recently, Mississippi
prosecutors asked Dr. Bass

to help pinpoint time since
death in a brutal murder case.

Someone had murdered a young family,
a husband, wife, and their young daughter.

The chief suspect,
a relative of the victims,

held a quarter million dollar
life insurance policy on the child.

But Bass was told the man had an alibi for
the two weeks before the bodies were found.

The suspect also claimed that
he tried to visit the family twice,

once in mid-November,
and again in late-November.

So he admitted to being
at the crime scene,

but he claimed on each
occasion, no one was home.

Pinpointing the time
since death was crucial.

>>[Bass] I asked them to send me
pictures of the crime scene,

to send me photographs
of the bodies.

>>[narration] Bass looked for signs of
insect activity, taking into account

the fact that the bodies
were indoors, not outside.

>>[Bass] The blow flies are
outside of the house,

it takes them a few days to realize,
"Hey, there's a dead body or bodies

in that house.
How can I get in there?" you see.

>>[narration] Finally, Bass spotted a key
piece of photographic evidence,

the discarded shells that maggots
leave behind as they turn into flies.

These pupa casings proved that once the
flies finally reached the murder victims,

the insects underwent a complete
14 day lifecycle and then some.

Bass's report concluded that the family
was killed in November,

the date matching one of the
defendant's admitted visits to the cabin.

The blow flies helped prove opportunity,
the insurance policy provided the motive.

The suspect was
convicted of murder.

>>[Bass] It does make you feel good that
you are able to look at the scientific data,

which is there, and that's what I did.
I didn't know any of the people

involved in this at all, and from
the scientific data, able to make

an analysis that corresponds exactly
to the events that occurred in this case.

>>[narration] Bass's work proved that in
cases where corpses were decomposed,

forensic anthropologists could
make an important contribution

to a murder investigation.

Still to come: when the blood's been
washed away and evidence is scarce,

one investigator finds
the answer is in the bones.

National Geographic
Channel Presents now continues.

The chronology of decomposing flesh
provides CSI units with useful evidence,

but Steve Sims, one of the body farm's
most renowned graduates,

focuses on what's left behind after
the bugs have picked the bones clean.

>>[Sims] Here, we do find a scatter five feet
from somebody's foundation of their house,

and I found the thoracic vertebrae,
which are human.

Over here there's a skull,
and over here is an arm.

Already, dogs have destroyed
a lot of the ends of the bones.

>>[narration] Originally, Sims planned
for a career in archaeology.

After one class at the forensic facility,
he left archaeology in the dust.

>>[Sims] This is the right tenth rib.
Right here, and right here.

You see some trauma. Indicative of
shot trauma or a knife stab wound.

>>[narration] Today, he's taking bone
trauma analysis to a new level.

>>[Bass] One of the ways of
killing an individual and trying to

mask the identity of that
individual is to saw the body up.

Saw the arms off,
saw the head off.

>>[narration] Sims's speciality
is reading signatures,

the tell-tale signs that
saws leave behind

when a killer
cuts up a corpse.

>>[Sims] I've seen everything used
from knives to axes to

serrated knives
being used as a saw.

I've seen power tools used.

I've seen a bandsaw
to cut up a body.

I've seen circular saws
used numerous times.

>>[narration] Bone is an
engineering marvel.

It's a composite material,
a flexible matrix of collogen fibers

infused with calcium phosphate
for stiffness and load-bearing.

It's like steel-reinforced concrete,
but lighter and stronger.

It's a durable material, so the marks
a saw leaves as it cuts up a body

can endure for years.

Sims took up his grisly specialty
after a detective asked him to

identify a notch in a bone.

>>[Sims] I said "It's a
saw mark on an arm bone."

And when I said, "It's a saw mark," I thought
I was proud to give him some information.

Well, he looked at me, he said,
"But, I already know it's a saw mark."

"You're the bone doc,
what kinda saw is this?"

And I didn't know.

>>[narration] Sims needed to know.

It was his third dismemberment
case in just one month.

He set out to fill this gruesome
gap in forensic knowledge.

It would take him
15 years of research.

To the naked eye,
all sawmarks look alike.

[beeping, then camera flash sound]

>>[Sims] It turns out that's not true.

Every tooth leaves another mark,
and the reciprocating action

of these teeth, or continuous
motion of these teeth

leaves lots of
indicators of toolmarks,

lots of characteristics, and with enough
characteristics, many times I can get,

for example, the number of teeth per inch
in a tool used to dimember a body.

>>[narration] Now Sims can read a sawmark the
way a handwritting expert can dissect a signature.

He can even spot false starts,
or skips in the stroke.

And he can tell police what kind of saw
to search for in a dismemberment case.

You want to know more than "a saw,"
you want to know what kind of saw,

how wide that saw is,
how wide the blade is,

how wide the tooth is,
the minimum kerf width,

the number of teeth per inch, and how
that saw was used to dismember a victim.

All saws look similar or look identical,
they really aren't.

>>[narration] A killer may think that washing
blood off a blade is enough to cover his tracks.

But, not if Sims is on the case.

>>[Bass] If you listed five
people in the world who were

the world leaders in this,
Steve would be one of those five.

>>[narration] Like fingerprints,
footprints, and tire tracks,

tool marks can crack a case,
even years after the crime.

>>[Sims] Bone trauma is
a moment frozen in time.

All the soft tissues, and so on,
disappear or change

or deterioriate with time.

Bone doesn't change or deterioriate,
we just clean it up.

It's there, it's good evidence,
it's evidence you can take to court.

>>[narration] The process of normal
body decomposition and bone trauma

are well-documented
at the body farm.

But, some killers try to
cover their tracks with fire.

Not long ago, burned
bones marked a dead end.

Fingerprints, faces, wounds:
all gone, burned away.

But, the Tennessee scientists were confident
other evidence could be sifted from the ashes.

>>[Bass] Okay, I bet that fits right there.
>>[narration] To know what to look for though,

they'd have to learn precisely what happens
when fire meets human flesh and bone.

>>[Elaine Pope] What
I'm about to do is,

I'm going to build several
little contained systems.

Right now I'm
just testing for heat.

>>[narration] Elaine Pope, a PhD student,
got these body parts from an

anatomical laboratory to which corpses had
been willed or donated for medical research.

Before these limbs were provided to her,
they were used by medical students

to practice surgical procedures.
She starts with an arm.

>>[Pope] And I'm gonna photograph
it before I place it in the fire.

I'm gonna do each element that way
and document what it looks like before,

including the size, shape,
and position of it.

>>[narration] During daylight,
smoke obscures the details,

not so much from the eyes,
as from the camera lens.

So, Pope experiments
and photographs at night.

As the arm heats,
it actually begins to move.

>>[Pope] What I want to do
is see how the arm draws up

and how it reacts to heat.
When the arms react to heat

they go into the pugilistic posture,
which is where the muscles of the arm,

the flexors, pull the arm
into flexion like this.

And so I want to observe
that process as it occurs.

>>[narration] As muscles burn,
their fibers shrivel, and contract.

The stronger muscles (usually the flexors)
overpower the weaker ones (the extensors).

In fact, the arms flexing is so consistent
that if a body is found with the arms

extended, it could be
a sign of foul play.

>>[Sims] The body will assume that pugilistic
pose at all costs, unless stopped from doing it.

The muscles are very strong
and it pulls you into that pose.

So, if I see something that goes
against this post, I'm suspicious.

>>[Pope] If the arm was outstretched,
and it wasn't able to assume a

pugilistic posture with the elbow,
that would possibly indicate that

the arms had been tied, even if
there's an absence of the actual material

(they could have used string or
rope which would have burned away).

>>[narration] But, is that movement
the same in an accidental house fire,

as it is in an intentional fire made
hotter by accelerants like gasoline?

>>[Pope] I'm gonna do the slow burn
so that we can watch the gradual

progression of it, and then the other arm,
I'm gonna do in a really fast, hot, intense fire.

>>[narration] And will
the arm hold its position,

even after all organic
matter has burned away?

>>[Pope] As you can see,
the arm has reacted as we expected.

It drew into the pugilistic posture
with this being the elbow here,

and this being the wrist here,

and these being the hands.

>>[narration] The main torso, despite the
separation of its limbs will also yield clues.

Does a dismembered body
still seek the pugilistic posture?

>>[Pope] I'm mainly
interested in this one

because it still has the portion of
the humerus and the femur attached.

And so, I'm wanting to see if it
reacts the same way as if the arm

were still attached, to see if it's gonna be
drawn up, and if the femur gets kinda drawn up.

>>[narration] Even stumps of limbs
still try to assume a fighting stance.

>>[Pope] We're trying to establish
normal patterns of burning.

That way we can
look for unusual cases.

If a burn pattern is disrupted, it could be
indicative of preexisting trauma or dismemberment.

>>[narration] Some researchers, including Pope,
have done studies with animal limbs.

But when a murder case hangs in the balance,
there's no substitute for the real thing.

>>[Pope] The reason why
we use human material

is to accurately simulate
house fires and vehicular fires.

For one thing, it stands up,
it's more credible in court,

to say, "Yes, we've tested this
and we know exactly what happens."

It helps with the medical
examiner, their testimony.

>>[narration] There are
many variables to explore.

Can decomposing
muscles still flex an arm?

At what temperature
does flesh ignite?

After burning the specimens,
Pope gathers up the charred bones,

cleans them,
and studies the patterns.

She notes color changes
in transition zones

where protected, unburned bones
give way to charred material.

To fully grasp the patterns,
she makes detailed drawings.

One clear difference
is fracture patterns,

another is calcination: the transformation of
dense bone into a light, chalky material.

>>[Pope] I burned these
two different tibia

at different temperatures,
and different times and durations.

This one is more calcine,
it's burned to a further extent.

And you can see it has a
higher frequency of fracture patterns.

Whereas, this one was burned to a
lower temperature and less amount of time,

and it took on more of
the char of the blackness.

>>[narration] Do fracture
patterns change when

a stream of cold water from
a fire hose hits hot bone?

What patterns might be left when
accelerants are used to heat up a fire

and hide evidence of murder?

There is so much to be learned
from bone, even after fire,

but only time and research witll tell
just how much evidence can survive.

In the body farm's quest to
identify unkown crime victims,

new technologies meet
old-fashioned techniques head-on.

Joanna Hughes is a forensic sculptor,

putting clay on skulls,
she reconstructs human faces.

Hughes hopes her work can someday
help I.D. a murder victim and catch a killer.

The technique employed by
Hughes is not only time-consuming,

but it's ultimate success hinges
on a high degree of artisic talent.

>>[Joanna Hughes] If you are
off by even a millimeter,

then you run the risk of having an
incorrect, or an unidentified, individual.

And for every unidentified individual,
there is a criminal perpetrator, murderer,

walking the streets.

>>[Bass] To do a good facial
reconstruction of an individual,

you have to have
a lot of artistic ability.

You have to be able
to get the face

so it has some expression on
the face, so it looks like a face.

I've done this before and
my heads look like clay heads.

>>[narration] This head looks human.

It also looks remarkably
like the actual subject:

a man who donated his
body to the forensic facility.

Hughes did this
reconstruction for practice,

then checked her
work against the photos.

>>[Hughes] Ah! It's him!

>>[narration] But, what if she'd
guessed wrong about

the size of the nose,
or the fleshiness of the jowls?

In a real murder case, the stakes
are high and time is precious.

Clay reconstruction yields a
single guess about a victim's looks.

One mistake could
stall an investigation.

Murray Marks hopes to
overcome those short-comings

by bringing facial reconstruction
into the computer age.

For help, Mark has joined forces
with Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The government research lab has
supercomputers and imaging experts.

Marks has cranial dimensions
from some 1,000 modern skulls,

the largest database
of its kind in the world.

But, to build a face from a skull,
he needs to know more about

the intimate marriage
of skin and bone.

That requires state-of-the-art
MRI and CAT scan expertise.

Some of the world's leaders
in this field work in the

research imaging center at the
University of Texas Health Science Center.

The center's director,
Dr. Peter Fox,

is intrigued by the facial
reconstruction project.

To provide baseline images
from a known individual,

he's offered his scanners
and his own flesh and bone.

Fox's MRI maps the
surface of his face.

His CAT scan yields a 3D image
of the skull beneath the skin.

Now the challenge is to recreate by computer,
a face that looks like the living Dr. Fox.

If they can figure out how
to do it with a known face,

they're optimistic they can
do it with an unknown one.

A wireframe model helps
translate the relationship

between Fox's face and his skull
into mathematical formulas.

Those formulas can then be
used to create a facial mask.

In this case,
a mask of Fox's face.

Once the software
development is complete,

police or witnesses could
easily modify such masks.

>>[Marks] What if they were heavier?
What if they were lighter?

Change that hairline,
change the eye color.

Or, you know, add a beard,
add a mustache, things like this.

>>[narration] The Tennessee scientists
are taking promising steps toward

one of the final frontiers
in forensic anthropology:

to restore a face and with it,
the identity and humanity of a victim.

The conclusion of
Secrets of the Body Farm, next.

And now the conclusion of
Secrets of the Body Farm.

In the early years, the research conducted
at the Anthropology Research Facility

was not widely known, but then,

its unofficial nickname
coined by police and FBI agents,

became the title of a best-selling
crime novel by Patricia Cornwell.

The body farm hit the mainstream.

More books, movies,
and hit TV shows followed,

raising the facility's profile and
communicating the importance of its work.

>>[Robin Miller] The drill is that we are
going to pull him out of the truck.

>>[Michelle Miller] I'm afraid
the upper body's gonna drop.

You have the strength?
>>[Robin] Yep.

>>[narration] Here, death marks not an end,
but a beginning. The start of an amazing

odyssey, carefully observed and
recorded in minute detail by researchers.

>>[Robin] Alright, here's good.
>>[narration] Robin Miller is

studying a specific component
in human decomposition.

>>[Robin] Okay.
>>[narration] A possible linkage

between clothing
and the rate of decay.

>>[Robin] Lift his legs up.
And put one leg at a time

in through here, and then hold his legs up
while someone else pulls it over his... [trails off]

Half of all cases that we
work on in the United States

are people that we have
found with clothing on them.

My research hopes to
answer the question:

Can we use that data in order
to determine a time since death?

>>[narration] This corpse, donated
by family per the dead man's wishes,

will prove invaluable
in Miller's research.

To protect his identity, he is
now known simply as Corpse 3101.

But, anonymity can't diminish his generous
nature, or his willingness to help others,

even after his death. His contribution
reaches far beyond pure science.

It may influence real-world murder
cases and help bring killers to justice.

Drawing on prior research, Miller has
divided decomposition into four stages:

Stage one spans the
first day or so after death.

>>[Robin] Stage one is where--
is what we call the "fresh stage."

Where there is no maggot activity,
we just have the basic

rigor, algor, and liver mortis.

>>[narration] Stage one is marked by
stiffening, discoloration, then relaxation.

>>[Robin] As we get out of
stage one, into stage two,

is when the blow flies come in
and start to lay their eggs.

And their eggs will, of course,
hatch into maggots.

The maggots will take over and
start consuming the body.

>>[narration] Stage two includes
a flurry of insect activity:

yellowjackets, blow flies, and maggots.

>>[Robin] The eggs that were laid
a couple days ago in the nose, have hatched.

So, we have a maggot mass that's
going to work around his nostrils.

And in his right ear,
and near his right eye.

They've eaten away on
the inside of the mouth.

I can see some eggs that
have been laid on the tongue

and in the left cheek area.

>>[narration] The proteins
and fats in human cells

are a near perfect
food for maggots.

The swarm of insects is a
gruesome reminder of mortality,

as is the smell
of decomposition.

Inside the body, the bacteria are
starting to work on the internal organs.

>>[Robin] As that happens,
gases are also released inside the body,

there's a process called "autolysis,"
where the cells inside burst,

because the pH level is disrupted.

>>[narration] Some of the
gases escape the corpse

through natural body openings,
creating putrid smells.

Gases that are trapped within
distend the veins in the body,

a process called "marbling."

Sometimes the gases build up enough
to burst a corpse's abdomen.

Stage three is the longest
phase of decomposition,

and is greatly influenced
by the changing seasons.

>>[Robin] We definitely have a decrease
in maggot activity and fly activity

because the larvae and the eggs can't live
below a certain temperature.

So the cold weather is having
an effect on the decomposition here.

>>[narration] But the
cycle does continue.

Fifty-two days after
the start of the experiment,

3101 enters stage four of decomposition.
He is essentially mummified.

Any remaining skin has
the texture of leather,

and nearly all of the
soft tissue is gone.

Already it appears that clothing
may have slowed the rate of decay,

but confirming that assumption
will require a scientific review

of the data in the weeks ahead.

A gentle hillside in Tennessee,
unique in all the world,

a singular place set aside for gleaning
knowledge and truth from flesh and bone.

>>[Haskell] The anthropological
research facility here in Knoxville

is absolutely critical in research,
when it comes to assessing human death.

>>[Bass] There's a lot of really
cutting-edge research going on

at the body farm right now,
it's the only research essentially,

of this type in the world.

>>[narration] Lee Jantz believes
the work is so important,

she's made an extraordinary commitment,
in spite of her discomfort

with what she knows will follow.

>>[Lee Jantz] I am a donor. When I die,
I expect my family to honor my wishes

and donate me to the
anthropological research facility

in the department of anthropology.
It is not a pleasant thought.

I don't like to think of what my body
will go through, but it's gonna happen.

>>[narration] The dead remain the focus
of scientific scrutiny at the body farm,

but the reason for the research,
the motivation and the inspiration

will always remain the living.

[up-tempo closing music]