Body Farm World’s 1st To Study Corpse Decay In Cold Climates

MARQUETTE, MI — Scientists know little about how the human body decomposes in frigid climates, but that could change with the world's first cold weather body farm at Northern Michigan University in Marquette. There are eight such research centers around the world to study the effects of temperatures, direct sunlight and humidity on human body decomposition, but they're all located in moderate to tropical climates.

Beginning with the fall 2017 term, the 8,600-student university near the Lake Superior shore of the Upper Peninsula will offer a degree program in forensic anthropology, keying on increasing career interest in crime scene investigation. But the research facility with the macabre moniker will also help scientists and police investigators better understand the effects of the freeze-and-thaw cycle on the decomposition of corpses and more accurately determine a time of death, a crucial element in bringing killers to justice.

"Relatively little information exists on the effects of freezing and thawing on human decomposition," the school said in a statement. "NMU students and faculty will conduct this pioneering research in varying conditions and scenarios, creating the baseline data so critical to the quickly advancing field of forensic anthropology."

The body farm, to be located on 2.5 acres of land granted to NMU last week by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, "also has the potential to enhance the regional economy by offering specialized training and research opportunities for law enforcement, government agencies, military personnel and visiting scientists," according to the statement.

If the term body farm sounds like something out of fiction, it is. Though researchers found the descriptor of facilities where researchers poke and prod human remains to be overly sensational, the term stuck after New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell's 1994 crime fiction novel "The Body Farm." In it, Cornwell describes the scientific playground that helped forensic pathologist unlocked unearth horrifying details about the violent death of an 11-year-old in a sleepy North Carolina town.

Cromwell's fictional prose doesn't stray far from the on-the-ground research that will occur at the Northern Michigan University.

"An opportunity like this is just outstanding from a crime scene investigation standpoint," Michael Bath, the university's public safety director, told WLUC-TV. "We do an evidence type program where we're going to be able to use actual crime scenes and process those crime scenes."

The unique facility will also draw science professionals "to come and do basic research, and get hands-on training," Evan McEvoy, head of NMU's Anthropology Department, told Michigan Public Radio.

Most of the questions McEvoy fields are concerns about the smell of rotting corpses, but he says that won't be an issue for residents near the Marquette facility.

"Surprisingly, there isn't much odor," he told Michigan Public Radio. "You have to be literally inside the facility and you have to have fresh donations."

The donations will come from northern Michigan residents who donate their corporeal remains to science, though at some other facilities unclaimed bodies are released by government medical examiners. At NMU, donors' skeletal remains will be kept in a climate-controlled, safe and secure museum-style setting.

"Bones offer many helpful clues about the deceased," Scott Demel, an associate professor of anthropology at NMU and former head of anthropology collections management at Chicago's Field Museum, said in a statement. "They can be analyzed to determine gender, age, occupation, pathologies, and evidence of trauma or other causes of death."

To develop the program, NMU officials traveled to the Forensic Anthropology Center, the first-of-its-kind body farm at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. It was established in 1981 by forensic anthropologist Bill Bass, and for 25 years, its staff consulted on forensics cases from across the country.

Similar projects followed, and now exist at Western Carolina University, Texas State University, Sam Houston State University, Colorado Mesa University and the University of South Florida, where the latest body farm pop-up, the Florida Forensic Institute for Research, Security and Tactical Training, is located. Another facility is located near Sydney, Australia.

The pioneering body farm in Knoxville remains the go-to expert among law enforcement and medical examiners for scientific conclusions about the time of death in specific cases, Forbes reported. There, the world's largest documented collection of contemporary American skeletons is part of a data set used to develop the statistical program, FORDISC, which standardizes skull measurements to help anthropologists determine sex, height and ancestry.

At other body farms, research is more focused to the unique ecological aspects and other characteristics of each region. For example, at the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility at Texas State University in San Marcos, the largest body farm in the country, researchers in one project couple infrared photography and drone technology to find the bodies of people who have died while crossing the border of Mexico and Texas, Forbes reported. The training offered to law enforcement focuses on the use of cadaver dogs and natural species in the environment, including scavenging vultures, in search and rescue operations.

Researchers at the Southeast Texas Applied Forensic Science Facility at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville focus on forensics entomology, looking to bugs, barnacles and scavengers to help determine how long a person has been dead. At the Complex for Forensic Anthropology Research at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, researchers found that constant, low-speed winds may cause bodies to naturally mummify in southern Illinois.

Photo by Ali Al-Saadi-Pool/Getty Images News/Getty Images

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