Forensic Procedure for Digging Up

¶ … forensic procedure for digging up mass graves, such as the ones in Rwanda following the genocide there. The well-known forensic doctor William Haglund has worked in Rwanda unearthing mass graves that resulted from the genocide that took place there in the 1990s. The paper will also review the work of forensic anthropologists Karen Ramey Burns and Bill Blass.

In Rwanda, much nasty forensic work needed to be done after the killing of tens of thousands of people had ended. One of the forensic scientists whose task it was to locate and exhume bodies and bones from mass graves was Dr. William Haglund. He wrote a scholarly piece in the quarterly journal Historical Archaeology (excerpted in the journal Foreign Policy) in which he explained that first, a mass grave must be discovered. "...A trained archaeological eye can determine difference in vegetation, soil, and microtopography that indicate a ground disturbance," Haglund writes.

And a simple ice pick, or a screwdriver, can be used to check to see how "compacted the soil is; other times they may use an odor-detecting probe, sonar, or radar," Haglund continues. And once a suspected grave site is located, backhoes get involved; a cross-shaped trench is dug to determine the size of the grave; about five centimeters (deep) of soil should be scraped away at a time, all the while the scientists are looking for bones or clothing. Once a bone or any part of human remains is found, the backhoe operator is asked to dig a "deep trench around the perimeter of the grave," and the forensic archaeologists work from the outside of a site to the center, "rather than from the surface down," Haglund explains.

Brushes are used to locate bones so they can be dragged out of the pile by hand. Corpses are counted by "cranium, photographed, numbered, and transported in bags to an on-site morgue," the article continues. The evidence is labeled, secured in bags, and logged "...according to U.S. rules of evidence and U.N. guidelines." The work of forensic archaeologists - in terms of excavation skills at mass gravesites - is often more sophisticated than the skill level of forensic anthropologists, Haglund believes.

Dr. Karen Ramey Burns has been all over the world applying her skills in forensic anthropology. She has worked in "all areas of osteological analysis and human identification," she explains in her bio on the University of Georgia Web site. Her work has included identifying bodies in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

She has worked documenting war crimes in Iraq following the first Gulf War, she trained Guatemalan teams to correctly identify civil war victims during the 1990s, and has done forensic work in Haiti and in Colombia. In Colombia Burns is presently working with forensic anthropology teams coordinated with the group Equitas. This work is funded by human rights organizations, and involves using forensic anthropology as "the fundamental tool in the search for the disappeared and the clarification of their deaths."

Family members of missing persons are able to bring some degree of closure to their grieving when they are able to learn exactly where their loved one was killed and be able to provide respectful burial services to that person; in that sense, Burns is an active person in the world of humanitarian work.

Once an Equitas (with Burns on board) team locates a body, it is transported to a laboratory and a proper forensic analysis is conducted, "fully respecting the chain of custody," Burns writes in her biography.

Meanwhile, there are probably not very many better examples of how forensic anthropology has been successful in the United States than through the work of Dr. Bill Bass, the forensic anthropologist from the "Body Farm" in Tennessee. Bass has helped take forensic anthropology to a higher level, and help law enforcement apply it to the identification of bodies, how they died, how long they have been dead, and possibly why they died.

In fact, the memoir, Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales, is not for the person who is a little squeamish or sensitive to descriptive narrative on death and rotting bodies. But on the other hand, a reader who is also interested in the subject doesn't have to necessarily enjoy the idea of decomposing human corpses - or have really thick skin - to get educated regarding the forensic science / anthropologic value of this book.

Being a student in Forensic Anthropology in fact makes it easier to get through the potentially offensive parts of the book, because there are many things to be learned from the novel. This book reflects real-life issues pertaining to forensic research and crime-related applications to forensic science. The book is dedicated to "All victims of murder, all those who mourn them, and all who seek justice on their behalf."

Bass's "Body Farm" is designed so that cases where bodies are found in similar circumstances may have a foundation in terms of the forensic police personnel being able to know how and when - if not why - the body was dumped in that particular spot.

In the Foreword of the book, distinguished crime reporter and forensic crime novelist Patricia Daniels Cornwell (whose book Postmortem is highly praised for the exactness of forensic anthropology in crime investigations) writes that Bass's research has "revolutionized the field of forensic science," in particular because Bass is credited with pinpointing the "time since death," an extremely important feature for crime solving communities.

The dead have much to say that only special people with special training and special gifts have the patience to hear, despite the assault on the senses," Cornwell writes (xi). And many of those dead bodies have arrived on the Body Farm "through their own selfless choosing" years in advance, by donating their bodies to Bass's "remarkable ongoing study," Cornwell continues. "Daily, wounded and worn-out bodies melt into the earth and are carried away by birds and insects and other predators who are simply part of the food chain and not the least bit morbid."

How can forensic anthropology help solve a real life problem? Identification of missing loved ones, using facial reproduction (or reconstruction) can be an important link in the identification of bones. It is based on the average soft tissue thicknesses over several places on the skull and jaws. Modeling clay is used in this procedure.