National Geographic Secrets of the Body Farm HD 1080 WEB H264 4000

[Narrator] 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]

>>It's pretty dark out here.

[Narrator] A skeleton
uncovered in Memphis.

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

[Narrator] A family,
murdered in Mississippi,

a body stashed
in a Las Vegas locker.

Real crimes, with real consquences.

>>We got a rib, we got a right scapula.

[Narrator] 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?

>>Did the skull look small to you too?

>>Ready? [unclear]

[Narrator] 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 many different means,

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

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

[Narrator] 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.

[Narrator] 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.

[Narrator] 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' 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.

[Narrator] 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.

>>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.

>>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.

[Narrator] 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.

>>You can see all through here, where it's
all decayed, and we've got some more bugs.

>>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.

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

[Narrator] 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.

[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.

[Narrator] 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.

>>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.

[Narrator] 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.

>>Sometimes that whiff is just too much.

[Narrator] 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 Trainer] What you got?
You find something?

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

[Dog Trainer] Oh, good girl.
What you got? Show me.

Good girl. Ready?
Want to find some more?

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

[Dog Trainer] Out here.

[Narrator] 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 Trainer] Very good!

[Narrator] Success is rewarded immediately, to reinforce every dog's complete