Outdoor forensic study site considered
Sacramento Bee 3/14/07
Researchers would trek into grassy meadows or up wooded slopes, collecting insects from corpses, weighing remains or taking time-lapse photos to document the final descent of a human body into decay.
Police officers might prowl nearby, training cadaver dogs or learning about evidence collection.
The bodies would be those of people who donated their remains to science, and the researchers could come via UC Davis, California State University, Chico, and beyond.
Insect and forensic experts at the two universities have been working quietly with the FBI, hoping to create such a lab -- the first outdoor forensic lab west of the Rockies.
Modeled after a Tennessee facility nicknamed the "body farm," the facility would monitor decomposition in natural environments, studying bodies buried and unburied, perhaps left inside cars or immersed in pools.
The goal is improving the sometimes shaky science that police rely on to estimate time of death.
Backers of the lab have a vision and plenty of support from law enforcement but no site.
On their wish list are about 10 acres of land, ideally with differing elevations and a water supply so that a range of microclimates could be created for study.
They'd want it far from neighbors but relatively close to a campus and an airport, permitting easy access for researchers and law-enforcement officers.
"I can't emphasize enough just how important this is," said Turhon Murad, a Chico State anthropology professor who does extensive consulting in forensic anthropology.
"I can understand where laypeople would think it's almost abhorrent, terrible," Murad said. "Until they've suffered a loss that this kind of facility could provide an answer to, I don't think they could understand."
The problem, as Murad sees it: Decomposition is a chemical process strongly influenced by local environment, including soil types, moisture, temperature, insects and animals. Yet there are virtually no data from California.
"All of the ideas we have about decomposition, time of death, right now are based on work that's done in the South," said Lynn Kimsey, a University of California, Davis, entomology professor.
When experts have to extrapolate from a Tennessee ecosystem to, say, a California crime scene, "there's a lot of seat of the pants estimations," she said.
The desire for data from other ecosystems, along with police interest in new training sites, is fueling interest in outdoor forensics.
The nation's second outdoor human decomposition lab opened last year at Western Carolina University in North Carolina. California advocates say other efforts, some quiet for fear of backlash, have been under way in Massachusetts, Florida and Texas.
"We need them all over the country," said FBI Special Agent Chris Hopkins, head of the evidence response team in the bureau's Sacramento office.
"We need a lot more than we currently have."
Hopkins, who's helped spearhead the California lab effort, estimates it would take "several million dollars" to set up a heavily fenced facility with 24-hour security near UC Davis or Chico State.
Once a site is found, he thinks the FBI could interest private backers who donate to law-enforcement causes.
The Davis-Chico partnership also has won the approval of the California State Coroners Association, Sacramento County Sheriff John McGinness and about 30 other law-enforcement and government officials who've written letters of support.
Bolstered by the University of California office that oversees donations of bodies willed to science, the team is piecing together a detailed proposal to take to Chico campus officials by spring or summer.
The idea has long bounced between the two campuses after initial, wary receptions at both.
Chico State administrators were cool when he first approached them years ago, said Murad, so he helped a UC Davis group try to advance the idea there.
UC Davis, meanwhile, had conducted outdoor decomposition research on donated bodies at least twice in the last four years, using a site west of campus. While shielded from ground-based viewing, the work alarmed a passing balloonist who called police.
That's an example of why UC Davis is too urban for large-scale outdoor forensics, said Neal Van Alfen, dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, who put a quick end to the search for a Davis site.
"We're very supportive of it. I just don't think we could pull it off on campus," Van Alfen said.
He's begun discussing potential alternate sites, including land owned by the UC system north of Beale Air Force Base, with officials in the UC president's office.
Chico State also remains uneasy.
"The matter of finding a secure location and paying for it isn't easily solved," Provost Scott McNall said.
While he calls the outdoor lab "an interesting and important thing to do," McNall adds that because he's not a forensic scientist, he doesn't know how much original science could truly be done there.
"If it's such a good idea, how come UC Davis doesn't have a body farm?" McNall asked.
Support from top administrators would be crucial for success, said John Williams, the North Carolina anthropology professor who established the nation's newest decomposition lab.
It took his campus three years, a false start at a location neighbors hated, and about $35,000 to set up an outdoor facility 40 feet by 50 feet.
The first bodies haven't arrived, but Williams has been astonished by the public interest.
He never sought out donors, yet offers have been pouring in from people who want to will their remains to his lab.
So far, he has a list of about 2,000 names.