Hunting for Clandestine BurialsHunting for 'Clandestine Burials'
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Hunting for 'Clandestine Burials'
A key element of training for FBI Evidence Response Teams is learning how to find and properly excavate burial sites while preserving key evidence. Transcript
Part I: FBI Trains at Body Farm Story | Gallery
Headline Archives
BODIES OF EVIDENCE
Part 2: 'Scraping the Layers Away'07/16/09
Dr. Stanley Rhine oversees FBI personnel at a Body Farm excavation site. Video | Photo Gallery It’s a balmy Wednesday morning in the parking lot outside the “Body Farm,” a two-plus-acre wooded landscape where the science of human decomposition is on vivid display.
It’s Day Three of the FBI’s annual Recovery of Human Remains course. And the students, 40 FBI Evidence Response Team members, are finally going to get their hands dirty after two days of intense coursework.
As they duct tape themselves into Tyvek body suits and rubber gloves, the morning air is ripe with the sweet aroma of bug spray and sunscreen, punctuated occasionally by a pungent whiff of what’s to come over the next two days. Most here have already worked cases recovering human remains. This course—led by some of the nation’s leading forensic anthropologists—provides a more scientific foundation for approaching a scene, recording it, and excavating it to elicit the most evidence.
“The fundamental truth about excavation is it can only be done once,” says Dr. Stanley Rhine, a forensic anthropologist and professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico who was among the course’s instructors and team leaders.
Students in the FBI course use hand tools during excavation to protect bones and other artifacts a gravesite might yield. Video | Photo Gallery (May not be appropriate for young children)
The class is divided into six teams that will venture into the woods to locate “clandestine burials,” careful to avoid disturbing the dozens of exposed corpses that make up the University of Tennessee’s Anthropological Research Facility, or Body Farm. The teams will look for visual clues that betray recent burials, such as subtle changes in soil color or vegetation. Then they will gently poke long probes into the clay to see how easily the soil gives way.
The students follow rigid archeological protocols, flagging potential burial sites and then roping them off into staked grids for an orderly excavation. By early afternoon, the teams have identified sites and settled into the painstaking—even tedious—job of scraping away layers of soil and screening it for bones or other artifacts.
Flags planted by students identify the boundaries of a potential burial site. Video | Photo Gallery
“We’ve been working since about 8 o’clock this morning and we’re only down into the ground about four inches,” says Medora Arnaud, a photographer in our Houston office. “You have to go very slow. You’re mainly scraping the layers away to make sure you don’t miss anything.”Arnaud is on Dr. Rhine’s team, which by day’s end appears to be progressing well. A body has been discovered and mostly uncovered—rib cage, arms, one leg exposed. But webs of roots and a piece of lumber wedged in the grave are slowing things down.
The next morning, teams pick up with a few more hours of digging, sketching, and screening before removing the skeletons, which are later cleaned and measured to add to the university’s growing body of work.
But there are a few surprises. Dr. Rhine’s team discovers a second body in the same grave, just a few inches away from the first. Another team finds a suitcase-sized oval mass of bones and tissue in their excavation, explaining why it was so difficult to pinpoint the bones with probes.
Each of the digs presents unique twists and challenges—true of most Evidence Response Team work and a key teaching point. The work is taxing, even stomach-turning at times. But Dr. Murray K. Marks, one of the course’s forensic anthropologists, puts it in perspective.
“It’s just like a crime scene,” he says. “It isn’t about you. It’s about the victims or…training the agents that need to go into that scene. You put that first, and you kind of become inconsequential to the mission at hand.”
Resources:
- Bodies of Evidence, Part I | Gallery
- More Stories on the FBI Laboratory
- Evidence Response Team Unit
October 9, 2009
(3 Videos) GRAPHIC! THE BODY FARM Pts. 1 - 3 Hunting for Clandestine Burials
Video Coming: The Tennessee Body Farm
Hunting for 'Clandestine Burials'
Transcript
FBI’s Evidence Response Team Training in Tennessee
(sounds of people milling about, donning protective gear)
Slate: Every year a select group of FBI Evidence Response Team members trains in the recovery of human remains.
Slate: The weeklong training takes place at the Anthropology Research Facility in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Slate: The Body Farm
Lindsay Caldwell, Anthropology graduate student, Louisiana State University: The overall goal of the project is to find a clandestine burial and use the proper archeological techniques to excavate that burial. So right now the first step that they’re doing is do an overall survey of the area, and actually right now they are going to stand in a line and kind of travel down this fence line. And they have probes, so they’re going to probe for a burial and see what they think might delineate a grave.
Caldwell (to students): It can be on a slope. It doesn’t have to be flat surface that we’re working with. You know, it could be on a slope, could be on a slant. It could be underneath some leaves over there. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Dr. Murray Marks, University of Tennessee: So the main thing today is the discovery of the grave and then the beginning of the excavation, which looks at soil changes and the beginning of the map, putting in the datum point. Getting the burial or site of interest situated in space. And that’s the main thing: mapping it in with datums and things of that point. So today’s kind of the analytical part of getting the grave situated. Towards the end of the afternoon bone will be discovered and mainly tomorrow or Day Three is the actual uncovering of the bone.
(sounds of scraping, digging, birds chirping)
Dr. Stanley Rhine, University of New Mexico: Well, the fundamental truth about excavation is it can only be done once. And to excavate is to destroy. And so in the process of recovering whatever it is that’s buried there you destroy the context in which it’s buried. And the context—the surrounding soil—may contain extremely valuable information about the individual: artifacts and other things that would help in the process of identification or in trying to figure out what happened to that individual.
(sounds of scraping, dirt being sifted, voices)
Jason Kaelin, special agent, Miami FBI: We’re definitely going to be into tomorrow, for sure. Um, I’d say it’s several more hours of digging because we haven’t even uncovered the second leg bone. We do have the rib cage exposed, both arms, and one tibia and fibula. But we don’t have the other leg exposed.
Gary Reinecke, Supervisory Special Agent, Evidence Response Team Unit: Well Knoxville, we’ve been here for ten years now training. It kind of resulted in a need that we identified based on casework that we’ve came across in the field, and some international cases that we became involved in. In the late nineties we were over in Kosovo and we were helping exhume bodies over there and we saw the need for some training based on what we experienced over there.
(muffled voices, scraping dirt)
Dr. Marks: Bureau personnel are some of the best students I’ve ever had. They are the expert at the crime scene. And their goal—and our goal really—is to, how do you process this unique crime scene? How does the excavator get this in the hands of the expert? We’re not trying to turn these agents into anthropologists or dentists or pathologists. If they would have wanted to be those things they would have been them. They’re crime scene specialists, Evidence Response Team. And my goal is to train them to appreciate this evidence and how do I excavate it and deliver it to the experts that are going to work on it.
(sounds of birds, footsteps on gravel path)
Caldwell: Our burial was actually placed in a bin and then last year upon reburial they took that body form the bin and poured it in this unit and so the body is curled up. It’s basically, it’s a bundle burial, so the bones are all bundled together. And so some of the issues that you have with that are it’s not extended, so you pretty much have to excavate in a circular pit.
Kaelin (to others): We’ve detected a skull but I’m guessing there’s a body there.
Kaelin: Well, as we were excavating this gravesite we found the remains of one skeleton. Upon further excavation it appears that we have a second body that’s been sandwiched in next to this first set of remains.
(muffled voices, scraping, bird sounds)
Medora Arnaud, photographer, Houston FBI: I definitely think it takes a certain kind of person to do this. I never thought I would be able to, but as the years have gone by and working in this field you get kind of accustomed to it. You know you have a job to do. And that’s what, a lot of times, I’m sure it gets a lot of people through it.
Dr. Marks: It’s just like a crime scene—well I can’t do this or I can’t do that. Well it’s not about you. It’s about the victim. Or it’s about training the agents that need to be able to go into that scene. So, you know, you put that first and you become kind of inconsequential to the mission.
Dr.Rhine: Everyone says to excavate is to destroy. But what they sometimes forget is the other half of the equation, the flip side. Because to investigate is to illuminate. And that, after all, is the purpose of the excavation—illumination.
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COLTON HARRIS MOORE | Weekly World News via Me via Lumina Sector via Facebook via Weekly World News - So Good I don't go there any more because of my little Internet Addiction Problem
COLTON HARRIS MOORE | Weekly World News
SEATTLE, WA – Police have been chasing an 18 year old fugitive they’ve nicknamed “The Barefoot Burglar.”Colton Harris Moore is believed to have been stealing small planes and island-hopping off the coast of Washington!
The modern day Jesse James has since developed a following, with even a Facebook fan club that 2,800 members. Their mantra? “Fly Colton, Fly!”
His troubles started at the tender age of 12, when “Colt” was first arrested for burglary after breaking into a local school. He was arrested another eight times before the age of 15.
After dropping out of high school, police say he spent his free time burglarizing unoccupied homes on Camano Island, a vacation community. Police gave him the nickname “Barefoot Burglar” due to his tendency to steal while shoeless.
Despite finally being arrested in 2007, he left a juvenile halfway house a year later and hasn’t been caught.
Colt seems to have emerged again, this time burglarizing on other islands. After two separate planes were stolen and crashed, police believe they have discovered his new method of transport. It is theorized that Colt taught himself basic flying skills by reading flight manuals and using simulators.
His mother, Pam Kohler, is not so convinced. “Any time anything is stolen, they blame it on Colt. Let’s say you’re the smartest person in the world. Wouldn’t you need a little bit of training in flying a plane? They’re not easy.”
However, she said, “I hope to hell he stole those airplanes- I would be so proud. But put in there that I want him to wear a parachute next time.”
Tags: barefoot burglar, camano island, colton harris moore, colton harris moore facebook, colton harris moore wiki, harris moore
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