Many people might have heard the idea of a “body” farm on television or perhaps in a book, but these are not fictional, there are indeed “body farms” in the United States and they are used to study what different elements and conditions will have on a decomposing body. The body farm was the brain child of William Bass at the University of Tennessee in the 1980’s. The use of the body farms has allowed controlled conditions to be used and is a huge leap forward in not only crime investigations but in forensic anthropology.
While the concept of studying the decomposition of the dead may not interest some people, it has been very advantageous in areas of law enforcement and forensics. When a body is either donated to the body farm or given to a farm for further study possibly by a law enforcement agency, the body will be put into a controlled environment where it can be studied during decomposition. This studying of the dead allows the investigators to re-create the situation under which an individual may have been murdered giving the investigators vital clues they otherwise may not have had.
Body farms are not only used to study crimes that have already happened but also in the research side of forensic investigations. When a body is studied at the farm, certain conditions may be used and a log of what happens and when to the body are made such as:
· Peeling of skin or bloating
· Appearance of certain bugs
· Appearance of certain bacteria
· Smell emitted from the body
· How long decomposition takes
These scientific recordings can then be used not only in a court proceeding but for other research purposes. To date there are five body farms located in the United States, one at the University of Tennessee, one at the California University in Pennsylvania, one at Western Carolina University, one at Sam Houston University and the largest of the body farms located at the Texas University.
There are of course many who oppose the body farm believing that it is disrespectful to the dead. But the need for scientific study of the dead is beneficial to the living in that it helps those who study death to know what happens to a body at each step of decomposition under different sets of circumstances and also enables law enforcement to better understand their crime scenes and the deaths they investigate.
While some may think it is disrespectful to use the dead as a learning tool it has been very advantageous to law enforcement and forensic scientists in furthering their education and the bodies are not left at the farms indefinitely, once they are studied they are given a proper burial.
Monica Raymunt “Down on the Body Farm” The Atlantic
“UT Knoxville” Dept. of Anthropology