Iowa professor proposes `body farm' to advance study of forensics

Minneapolis Tribune
Dec. 13, 2005

An Iowa professor seeks a federal grant to study the decay of human corpses.

WASHINGTON - An Iowa professor has come up with a new use for Midwestern farmland: He wants the federal government to help pay for a three-acre "body farm" near Cedar Falls, Iowa, where forensic scientists could study how quickly human corpses decay when exposed to different conditions.

"If you know what a cornfield's like, you know that there's very little air movement, a lot of humidity trapped within those tall plants," said Tyler O'Brien, a biological anthropology professor at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. "Could a body decompose at a different rate than if it was in an open field or in a forested climate? Hopefully, I'll have those ranges of ecological habitat to be able to explore different rates of decomposition."

Such research might be jarring to some, but O'Brien said most people support his plan once they're told it would help advance forensic science, one of the hottest topics in science education. The aim is to help investigators determine a person's exact time of a death.

O'Brien, who is seeking grants of $400,000 to $500,000 from the National Institute of Justice and other organizations, said he would seek donated bodies to use at the farm, modeling it after a one-of-a-kind facility at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Gene Juvette, a training officer with Iowa Search and Rescue, said the farm also would be a great place to train search-and-rescue dogs to find bodies.

"We use human hair ... and we use teeth we get from dentists," he said. "We use body parts. We use dirt. When there's a bad accident someplace and someone has bled, we'll go dig up that dirt. We have had members in the club that have had family members die and have laid on the carpet for days, and we have taken that carpet and used it. But a body farm would be excellent."

Juvette said the plan is sure to be controversial but added: "How do you ever do anything without research?"

Local reaction untested

Officials in Black Hawk County, where the research center would be located, might not be so keen on the idea.

Leon Mosley, chairman of the county's board of supervisors, said he had not heard of the proposal until contacted by a reporter.

"Wow. ... I'm shocked," he said. "We're a conservative kind of county, with conservative values, morals. I don't know how that would play out here."

O'Brien, 36, said he's expecting questions to be raised.

"I suspect there may be some issues with people who disagree with the way federal money should be spent," he said.

O'Brien said the project would comply with health guidelines and would be situated far enough from residences and businesses "so as not to offend." He has not yet decided on an exact site.

"Of course, during the peak of the summer, there could potentially be certain smells that might waft across the land," he said.

Mosley, of Waterloo, sounded skeptical: "Right now, the only smells we got there is hogs and cattle. And now you're talking about human parts. I don't know."

Mosley said the plan is sure to receive a thorough public airing in Iowa: "There would definitely be hearings on this."

O'Brien is optimistic that his grant application, which he submitted last month, will be approved. Federal officials declined to speculate on the fate of the proposal. Catherine Sanders, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice, said grant applicants won't find out until late February or early March if their "concept papers" have been accepted. O'Brien would then be asked to submit an in-depth proposal that would be reviewed within six months, she said.

No shortage of cadavers

Based on the experience of the nation's only existing body farm, in Tennessee, which has accepted 100 donated bodies this year, O'Brien said he doesn't expect to have any problem getting cadavers. He said that he already has received e-mails from interested elderly people and that he intends to work with hospitals that turn away donated bodies because of disease.

Technically, he said, it would be called a forensic anthropology research center, but he's comfortable calling it a body farm: "That's a term that's more colloquially used."

Rising interest, thanks to 'CSI'

The Tennessee body farm opened in 1981. O'Brien worked there with his mentor, William Bass, who pioneered the idea. Bass, who has written a book called "Death's Acre," is regarded as a something of a legend in forensic circles and is a hot draw on the speaking circuit. He's the guest speaker at a daylong seminar at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington March 19, and the event is already sold out. He has assisted the FBI and other law-enforcement organizations with hundreds of cases.

Richard Jantz, director of the University of Tennessee's forensic anthropology center in Knoxville, said demand for enrollment to the anthropology school is growing. He speculated that part of the interest is fueled by the television show "CSI," which focuses on crime-scene investigations.

The Knoxville center is surrounded by parking lots, and Jantz said that smells have never posed a problem. Security is a big priority at the body farm, which uses fences, padlocks, video surveillance and police patrols for protection.

O'Brien said his project would be unique because it would be located in a Midwestern climate: "We differ in vegetation, temperate ranges, certainly, insects [and] animals."

He offered some other examples of questions that researchers could probe: "How long does it take a body to decompose in a car, in a trunk, or in the front seat? Underground, above ground, in the water?

"The original reaction, of course, is, 'This sounds rather grotesque and macabre. Why do you want to do this?' " O'Brien said. "But then once they understand what the nature of the project is and its intentions and its goals, they understand the scientific importance and the relevance to death investigations. So they say, 'You know what? This sounds like a great project. Go for it.' "