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Speaker 1: Quody dots with Joseph Scott more Unlike notifying families, which

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Speaker 1: I never got used to, the last one was just

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Speaker 1: as bad as the first one. I can't say that

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Speaker 1: about decomposition. It impacted me. It affected me, but I could,

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Speaker 1: I could explain it to myself. And is not the

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Speaker 1: key I think with anything in life, if you're if

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Speaker 1: you're capable of being able to rationalize it and say, Okay,

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Speaker 1: this is what nature does to all of us. It

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Speaker 1: is those elements that are left behind. I think that

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Speaker 1: the real piece to this that we have to hang

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Speaker 1: on to and try to understand as practitioners and people

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Speaker 1: that are into true crime. Are the practitioners that are

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Speaker 1: working these cases. Have they paid attention to detail even

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Speaker 1: in the most austere circumstances. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and

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Speaker 1: this is body backs on a timeline when it comes

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Speaker 1: to decomposition. Dave, You're you're really what we've discussed at

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Speaker 1: this point. You're really only at this earlier stage. You

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Speaker 1: know where we've got. You know, we talked about blebs,

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Speaker 1: these pockets that appear on the skin. We've got skin

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Speaker 1: sloughing that takes place. It's skin slippage and sloughing, so

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Speaker 1: the skin will slough off, but it's easily just kind

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Speaker 1: of peeled away as well.

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Speaker 2: Let me ask you about that you said when you

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Speaker 2: were talking about slippage and you you were actually talking

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Speaker 2: to me one time about how you had to actually

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Speaker 2: to get fingerprints, yes from an individual, so you could

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Speaker 2: identify them. That you actually had to use that skin

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Speaker 2: slippage to your advanceage in trying to identify the person.

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Speaker 2: How does that even have How can you actually get

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Speaker 2: so loose on the top layer there this so then

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Speaker 2: that you could actually utilize that in a way.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of folks ask me about this, and

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Speaker 1: I've done it. There's a lot of people have done

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Speaker 1: I'm not some kind of original here, all right, So

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Speaker 1: I'm not breaking new ground. This has been done for

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Speaker 1: years and years. But people I think that people in

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Speaker 1: the general public can't believe that we do this. But

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Speaker 1: we do. And this is referred to specifically as you're

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Speaker 1: talking about the hands. This is what we refer to

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Speaker 1: as de gloving. Now you'll hear trauma surgeons, particularly with

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Speaker 1: people that have been drug behind cars and uh roll

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Speaker 1: over injuries and all that. You'll you'll they'll talk about

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Speaker 1: the de gloving of the skin, that sort of thing,

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Speaker 1: but degloving, as it applies in this context, with decomposition,

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Speaker 1: the skin around the hand, even down to the dermous,

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Speaker 1: will get so loose that we can actually if you

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Speaker 1: look at the heel of your hand, that where your

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Speaker 1: wrist joins into the heel of your hand, and then

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Speaker 1: on the the dorsum of your hand, the backside of

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Speaker 1: your hand as well, you can actually take that glove

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Speaker 1: of skin and gently peel the whole thing off, and

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Speaker 1: it's going to come off inside out. Really creepy. About

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Speaker 1: the creepy thing if that's not creepy enough for me.

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Speaker 1: That I always had a real hard time with is

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Speaker 1: that the fingernails come off with it. Okay, And so

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Speaker 1: the first time you do it, it's one of these

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Speaker 1: things that it's so difficult to get past. But the

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Speaker 1: purpose of this is that that skin is so fragile,

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Speaker 1: and you don't know who the person is you want

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Speaker 1: to try to roll a print. So what we will

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Speaker 1: do is we will put a surgical glove on our

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Speaker 1: own hand. Okay, then we will take the de gloved,

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Speaker 1: those degloved layers off of the decedent's hand and then

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Speaker 1: place them over our hand, and so our hand is

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Speaker 1: like in a latex glove. Then that latex glove containing

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Speaker 1: our hand is inserted into the degloved hand of the

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Speaker 1: decedent and we can actually roll a print and be

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Speaker 1: more gentle with it, say, because you use what are

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Speaker 1: called spoons, use post mortem spoons that are constructed specifically

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Speaker 1: to get a print off of a dead body. But

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Speaker 1: the skin is so fragile you have to be very

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Speaker 1: very careful with it. A spoon would not normally work

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Speaker 1: in this particular instance. So and you're also fighting dehydration

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Speaker 1: with this, or what's referred to as desiccation, So you

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Speaker 1: have to be very careful. And I've met every time

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Speaker 1: i've done it, I've met with great success in rolling

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Speaker 1: the print. And just imagine, you know, you see somebody

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Speaker 1: going to the lock up and you have to roll,

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Speaker 1: you know, or maybe if you've ever been fingerprinted for

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Speaker 1: a job, you have to roll your print, all right,

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Speaker 1: And so that's that's what we would do, and it's

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Speaker 1: it's one of those things that has developed over the

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Speaker 1: years in order for us to well. First off, when

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Speaker 1: you're talking about decomposing body, the question you have to

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Speaker 1: ask is why are they decomposing? Why hasn't nobody found

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Speaker 1: this person? And many times with advanced decomposition, you're talking

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Speaker 1: about somebody that they're un they're unknown, they're unidentified. And

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Speaker 1: I was just literally lecturing about this today at Jacksonville

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Speaker 1: State in my in my Clandestine Graves class that I teach.

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Speaker 1: If you don't know the ID of a of a person,

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Speaker 1: you can learn as much as you possibly can through

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Speaker 1: examination about the trauma they've sustained and all these sort

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Speaker 1: of things, and you can look at that person and say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they met the end. They met their end at the

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Speaker 1: hand of another, which is the definition of homicide. But still,

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Speaker 1: if you're working homicide, it's that knowledge is worth nothing

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Speaker 1: if you don't know who the person is, because the

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Speaker 1: genesis of an investigation is to find out who the

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Speaker 1: person is, Who did they roll with, who did they

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Speaker 1: associate with, who are their family members, where were they

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Speaker 1: last seen, when were they last contacted, and all of

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Speaker 1: this plays into this big cycle. So it's so important

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Speaker 1: for us to get these bodies identified. That's why you know,

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Speaker 1: I say that, you know with decomposed bodies you have

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Speaker 1: to be willing to, you know, screw yourself to the floor,

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Speaker 1: and as offensive as it is to you and as

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Speaker 1: insulting as it is, you do your job. That's why

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Speaker 1: I always find that laughable. If I ever like if

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Speaker 1: Silence a Lamb is on TV and there's the one

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Speaker 1: scene in the movie where Jodie Foster and they're in

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Speaker 1: the funeral home when they're putting fixed vapor rub beneath

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Speaker 1: their nose, and these FBI agents are actually doing the

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Speaker 1: work of a forensic a forensic pathologists, which is ridiculous

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Speaker 1: us they do yeah, right, And you know the problem

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Speaker 1: with that is people ask, how do you get used

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Speaker 1: to it? Well, you get used to it by intoelling

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Speaker 1: the space. You don't fight against it. Did you know, Dave,

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Speaker 1: When I was a very young investigator, there were still

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Speaker 1: pardon me, there were still detectives that would show up

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Speaker 1: at crime scenes that would have the biggest, nastiest, cheap

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Speaker 1: cigars that they possibly could buy and just listen to this,

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Speaker 1: and they would light these cigars on the scene and

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Speaker 1: smoke on the scene of it decomposing body. And so

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Speaker 1: you know, you're sitting there and you know, I have

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Speaker 1: an affinity for a good cigar. I like a good cigar.

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Speaker 1: It's something I don't do it every day, but it's

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Speaker 1: something I derive great pleasure from when I have an opportunity.

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Speaker 1: So not only are you showing the fact that you're

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Speaker 1: completely uneducated when it comes to trace evidence I've seen

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Speaker 1: because you're walking in with a lit cigar, you're displaying

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Speaker 1: that you have horrible taste in cigars. And so you're

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Speaker 1: subjecting us not only to DCOMP, but you're subjecting us

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Speaker 1: to the smell of the cigar or in the case

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Speaker 1: the silence of lambs thing where you're putting vix vapor

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Speaker 1: rub up your nose. So now you have to smell

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Speaker 1: DCOMP because you cannot defeat DCOMP. I don't care what

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Speaker 1: you do, You're going to have to spell DCOMP compounded

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Speaker 1: with vix vapor rub. I don't know from childhood. Vix

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Speaker 1: vapor rub is a comforting thing, all right, but it's

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Speaker 1: not two things I necessarily want associated. The idea is

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Speaker 1: that you just have to adjust to it, you understand.

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Speaker 1: That's why I always say that it's a natural process.

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Speaker 1: So when we're doing these examinations on the body at

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Speaker 1: the scene, we have to the best way we can continue,

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Speaker 1: you know, down the road, because it extends. Most of

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Speaker 1: these cases that we get there, they're going to extend,

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Speaker 1: you know, way past blebs and skin slippage and purging

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Speaker 1: and all of that stuff. You know, we got into

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Speaker 1: the woods, and if you find a body out there,

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Speaker 1: you're talking an individual that maybe laying out in the

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Speaker 1: woods unclothed, and their skin now has gone from a

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Speaker 1: greenish discoloration to almost a black to brown sometimes. And

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Speaker 1: the only way I can really describe it is the

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Speaker 1: skin has a leather like quality, and this goes to

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Speaker 1: hydration or desiccation of the skin. Now you'll get desiccation

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Speaker 1: or the drying of the fingertips. That that occurs kind

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Speaker 1: of early on, you know, maybe in the realm of

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Speaker 1: I don't know, four to five days. And it's like,

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Speaker 1: you know, when you're little and mom, you know, is

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Speaker 1: looking at your fingers. You've been in the pool too long.

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Speaker 1: Your you know, your fingers are like prunes. It kind

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Speaker 1: of looks like that, you know, they kind of prune

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Speaker 1: up like that. But when you get the entirety of

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Speaker 1: the body that has become dehydrated, now you're in to

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Speaker 1: another realm. At this point, in time, and you can

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Speaker 1: appreciate it because the skin and a lot of this

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Speaker 1: is dependent upon where you are in the country. Like,

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Speaker 1: for instance, if you're out in the desert Southwest, it

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Speaker 1: has very vegas, that area of Phoenix very low humidity.

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Speaker 1: Are you know, back in California, particularly the desert area

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Speaker 1: very little humidity. So any water that is contained with

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Speaker 1: I don't care if it's a human or if it's

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Speaker 1: any other you know, item that might be that there

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Speaker 1: can take. It's going to evaporate. It's going to go away.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes you'll catch that here in the Deep South,

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Speaker 1: you can catch it in cold temperatures. The cold leads

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Speaker 1: to dehydration many times with human remains, and the skin

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Speaker 1: almost takes on a leather like quality. And you're you're

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Speaker 1: talking and again remember we're going down this linear timeline.

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Speaker 1: We we cannot narrow it down anymore than say with

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Speaker 1: desiccation days to weeks. You see, the further out you move,

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Speaker 1: the broader this estimation becomes okay. So it's it becomes

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Speaker 1: progressively more difficult. And that's one of the big big questions.

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Speaker 1: Like I said earlier that our friends in law enforcement,

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Speaker 1: they're going to ask the people in forensics, specifically forensic pathology,

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Speaker 1: medical legal death investigation. How long, doc? How long? How long?

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Speaker 3: Well?

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Speaker 1: The best I can give you at this point, because

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Speaker 1: the body is dehydrated laying out here in the open.

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Speaker 1: Weeks maybe, wow, how many weeks? I have no idea.

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Speaker 1: I know that it's longer than a week. It has

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Speaker 1: been multiple weeks more than likely. Maybe we're looking at

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Speaker 1: a couple of months. With any other thing in life.

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Speaker 1: You know, longer you you know, you wait, the less

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Speaker 1: clear things are going to be.

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Speaker 2: But now, how is this that you're talking about decomposition?

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Speaker 2: But what happens when somebody dies and they go to

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Speaker 2: the funeral home? Is it the embalming that prevents the

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Speaker 2: body from going through all of these things?

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Speaker 3: Again we're talking about.

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Speaker 1: The Yeah, yeah, I'm all right, I mean step on

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Speaker 1: you there is it's no, it's uh and uh. You know,

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Speaker 1: funeral workers do a fine job of preserving the body

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Speaker 1: right when that can infuse the body. But here's the rub.

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Speaker 1: And this is just a cold hard fact. If you're

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Speaker 1: you know, people can have closed caskets because of trauma,

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Speaker 1: but there are many times decomposition happens with greater frequency.

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Speaker 1: Then people realize it's like everything and death investigation. People

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Speaker 1: are not aware. You know. I told you the story

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Speaker 1: about my wife when we went on our first date,

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Speaker 1: and she's like, I never thought about death until I

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Speaker 1: met you. Most people don't think about think about death

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Speaker 1: like this, and they don't, you know, many times they

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Speaker 1: have closed caskets because there's nothing. There's nothing that the

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Speaker 1: funeral workers can do, because once you start down this

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Speaker 1: road with decomposition, if it hasn't been stopped, then there's

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Speaker 1: no going back at that point in time. And some

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Speaker 1: people prefer to have a close casket. I don't know,

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Speaker 1: but I'm just saying this is one of the reasons

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Speaker 1: that this might might occur. So for people that work

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Speaker 1: in the mortuary sciences, they do a fantastic job considering

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Speaker 1: what they're having to do, but they have to get

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Speaker 1: these bodies early. This is not something if you're a

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Speaker 1: month down the road, you can forget it. It's not

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Speaker 1: going to work. There's no magic that they can really

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure I'll get some pushback on that. I

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Speaker 1: don't care, you know, It's just it's the reality of

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Speaker 1: biological change, and so you know, you have a body

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Speaker 1: that is in this state. The big question I have

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Speaker 1: as an investigator always comes back, and this always rings

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Speaker 1: true in my ears with decomposing remains. Why is this

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Speaker 1: person decomposing? And and he said, well, Morgan, you just

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Speaker 1: said it's because of science. Now that's not the question

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Speaker 1: I'm asking. What about this person has left them in

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Speaker 1: the state to where no one is aware of them

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Speaker 1: and they have been left alone this long. Now that

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Speaker 1: is a salient question when it comes to an investigation,

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Speaker 1: why are they missing? Or a bigger question is no

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Speaker 1: one missing them? Okay? You know our working premise that

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Speaker 1: we've talked about before and I talked to my students

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Speaker 1: about is that every death is a homicide until proven otherwise.

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Speaker 1: You have to live by that rule. So when you're

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Speaker 1: looking at a body that is desiccated, once you begin

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Speaker 1: to get past that point and they are under the

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Speaker 1: right conditions, Dave, you will actually have a process of

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Speaker 1: natural mummification that will take place with a body. People

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Speaker 1: don't think about that most of the time, with bodies

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Speaker 1: that are in the state where they can naturally mummify.

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Speaker 1: You know, we think about mummies from the perspective of

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Speaker 1: ancient Egypt and even even those that lived in higher elevations,

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Speaker 1: and I urge anybody out there that's fascinated by burial

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Speaker 1: practices and this sort of thing, take a look at

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Speaker 1: these at these cases that have taken place that they've

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Speaker 1: recovered these bodies out in Peru at those high plateau

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Speaker 1: elevations where there's literally no humidity, and you've got bodies

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Speaker 1: there that have been dead for hundreds and hundreds of

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Speaker 1: years and they're perfectly preserved. It's an amazing thing. The

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Speaker 1: environment dictated that. But we can actually have mumpification that

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Speaker 1: takes place without a body being treated in a specific way,

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Speaker 1: like you're not introducing chemicals, you know, like the ancients did.

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Speaker 1: But once you get past this mum of care, if

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Speaker 1: the and you're not always going to get it, you'll

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Speaker 1: go from a wet decomposition to skeletonization. I was going

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Speaker 1: to ask you, jump, Yeah, how do you miss that?

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Speaker 2: How do you go from okay dead, I've gone through

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Speaker 2: all the process and now yeah, somebody's going to be

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Speaker 2: a mummy and another's going to be a skeleton.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, how does that match up.

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Speaker 1: Well with mumification that goes to relative humidity? You know,

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Speaker 1: what kind of levels of humidity are you experiencing in

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Speaker 1: that environment, and most of the time with a body

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Speaker 1: that has quote unquote mummified. I really don't like that term,

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Speaker 1: but it's the term that's commonly used. You're going to

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Speaker 1: have ideal conditions, ideal environmental biological conditions where they're protected,

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Speaker 1: they're in a protected space, they are in an environment

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Speaker 1: generally in a house closed up, where you're not going

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Speaker 1: to have access first off, to any scavengers that's that

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Speaker 1: can't play into it. You'll see a progression many times

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Speaker 1: of flying insects, particularly blowflies that we'll set on the body.

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Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things that entomologists do,

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Speaker 1: those that study bugs, they'll go through several life cycles,

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Speaker 1: you know, and then there's in insects are fascinating and

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Speaker 1: we could do an entire episode, we could do an

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Speaker 1: entire month of episodes on entomology. But they have a

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Speaker 1: they have a natural order that they like, you have

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Speaker 1: certain insects that will not be present and will not

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Speaker 1: be present if there is another species present. They have

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Speaker 1: an order that they go in like you're not going

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Speaker 1: to find a blowfly in the presence of a dung beetle.

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Speaker 1: Uh there, And it's just this order that occurs in nature,

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Speaker 1: you know, and again that brings us back to bodies

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Speaker 1: beginning to break down. When we get to the point

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Speaker 1: where we have bodies that are either totally skeletonized or

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Speaker 1: partially skeletonized. You know, you're you're looking at a baseline

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Speaker 1: of months at that point in time. And again that

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Speaker 1: that factor of time that comes in here, How have

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Speaker 1: they gone this long in this location? What is it?

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Speaker 1: Did this person separate themselves from the rest of the population.

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Speaker 1: Where did they live, you know, almost a hermit like

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Speaker 1: life where they didn't have contact with anybody, and they're

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Speaker 1: just kind of locked up in their home. And suddenly,

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Speaker 1: you know, somebody says, hey, I haven't seen this individual

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Speaker 1: in a while. They do a welfare checking. You walk

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Speaker 1: into the house. It's got a foul odor, kind of musty.

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Speaker 1: At this point, it's not quite as pungent, and you

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Speaker 1: have skeletal remains that are there, and it's quite striking,

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Speaker 1: you know, to see this and out in the woods.

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Speaker 1: You know, we've covered on several shows where I talk

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Speaker 1: about scavenger activity and you know, skeletal remains are scattered

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Speaker 1: to the wind, you know, dependent upon what species are around.

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Speaker 1: You know, you have raccoons and possums that will you know,

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Speaker 1: and dogs that will carry, you know, various elements away,

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Speaker 1: and bodies are not completely intact. It's it's a real

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Speaker 1: rarity when you go out to and it doesn't have

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Speaker 1: to be a clandestine burial. A matter of fact, you're

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Speaker 1: a little bit protected if there is a burial. But

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Speaker 1: if you just have a surface deposition of remains that

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Speaker 1: are skeletonized, you're not going to find all the elements.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you're not. It's not going to happen because

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Speaker 1: you can't. You can't. You can't stem the tide of nature.

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Speaker 1: You know, everything that revolves around this, whether it's it's

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Speaker 1: you know, smaller animals or larger animals that are coming

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Speaker 1: in or or you know, any domesticated animal that's in there,

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Speaker 1: pigs rooting about, or dogs you know that might have

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Speaker 1: come from a neighbor's house over there. They you know,

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Speaker 1: and isn't that interesting? You know that that smell that

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Speaker 1: for us we find so repugnant for us as a species.

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Speaker 1: I think this comes from higher level thinking. Perhaps we're

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Speaker 1: not drawn to that, we might draw we might be

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Speaker 1: drawn to it to inspect it, to see what it

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Speaker 1: is and then suddenly retract and run away from it

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Speaker 1: or go call the authorities. That's not what animals do.

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Speaker 1: They get a whiff of something like this and they're

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Speaker 1: on it. I mean, they're heading in that direction and

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Speaker 1: they are not leaving and and you know, but that's

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Speaker 1: that's a natural course of things.

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Speaker 3: Nasty arments come from, you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and and that's that's the nature you know,

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Speaker 1: these sorts of things with when it comes to decomposing bodies.

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Speaker 1: And that's that's essential, uh, for any of us that

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Speaker 1: are out in the field. You have to do all

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Speaker 1: of that in your calculations about what you're looking for, uh,

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Speaker 1: what remnant, what remains, what is not there? You have

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Speaker 1: to take stock essentially. That's why you have to have

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Speaker 1: some baseline understanding in my field of you need to

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Speaker 1: be pretty solid antomically, you know, you need to be

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Speaker 1: able to understand what elements are missing from the body

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Speaker 1: that have to be accounted for or you have to

349
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Speaker 1: explain it or you have to you want to walk

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Speaker 1: that perimeter and look and see if there are you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe some of the elements of the hands or the ankles,

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Speaker 1: or are ribs that are missing. Because animals will take

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Speaker 1: away ribs. They'd love to do that and to get

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Speaker 1: the protein out of So you're fighting this fight, and

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Speaker 1: I guess for me it was as an investigator, it

356
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Speaker 1: was very pug nut.

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Speaker 3: How do these two relate?

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Speaker 2: You know, where you're going from like a biohazard clean up,

359
00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 2: you know situation and you we were just mentioning it

360
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Speaker 2: about how like in a landfill where it's constantly breaking down,

361
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Speaker 2: everything there is in a breakdown mode R which never

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Speaker 2: occurred to me. You know, we've had a number of

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Speaker 2: we've had a number of cases where men and women

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Speaker 2: of law enforcement had to go to a trash dump

365
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Speaker 2: to try to find a human being who had been

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Speaker 2: thrown away like trash. It never occurred to me until

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Speaker 2: you explained it how difficult that is. And well, we're

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Speaker 2: talking about that breaking down to the individual when you

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Speaker 2: get to you know, the active decay of stage three

370
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Speaker 2: leading into stage four? How is it possible that bones

371
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Speaker 2: the skeleton actually does break down.

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Speaker 3: Or yeah, what happens?

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, over let's let's there's a couple of

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Speaker 1: ways that that bone does in fact begin to structurally

375
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Speaker 1: it's compromised as a matter of fact, Just just to

376
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Speaker 1: paint you the picture of first off bone. Obviously it

377
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Speaker 1: is very resilient. You know, we have skeletal remains going

378
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Speaker 1: back eons. You know that are did the.

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Speaker 2: Show about it, you know remember a couple of then

380
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Speaker 2: it was like, I thought you were kidding with me

381
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Speaker 2: when you told me we're going to do the show.

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Speaker 3: And it's like the five year.

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Speaker 1: Old bones the rich Yeah, and and and look it's

384
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Speaker 1: still with Richard's king Richards uh remains. Uh, You're able

385
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Speaker 1: to appreciate all you You're able to appreciate his fatal trauma. Yeah,

386
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Speaker 1: going all that back, and a lot of it is

387
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Speaker 1: heavily dependent upon the soil composition obviously where they are found,

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Speaker 1: and what elements within the soil u and the soil

389
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Speaker 1: is a soil more acidic or is it more base

390
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 1: for instance? And over a period of time, then you

391
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:11,560
Speaker 1: have hydrology that plays into it, the flow of water

392
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Speaker 1: impacting the bone. So you have to have literally the

393
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Speaker 1: perfect the perfect set of circumstances for an entombement, perhaps

394
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Speaker 1: where a body will be bony structures will still be

395
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Speaker 1: resilient over period of time. I was actually involved in

396
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Speaker 1: the recovery of a Confederate soldier's skeletal remains that had

397
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Speaker 1: quickly been buried by his comrades following the Battle of

398
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Speaker 1: Ringold Gap in Georgia, and this young man had died.

399
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Speaker 1: We estimated he was probably about eighteen years old. He

400
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Speaker 1: had been shot in the back of the head with

401
00:25:56,119 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: what appeared to be consistent The defect in the back

402
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 1: of his head would have been consistent with a fifty

403
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,480
Speaker 1: four caliber springfield, which is what the Union troops used.

404
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 1: His buddies essentially put him in a depressed area in

405
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:12,200
Speaker 1: the ground and just pushed dirt over him. And we

406
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:15,919
Speaker 1: recovered his body. And interestingly enough, there was a tiny

407
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 1: little when we found him, and this could have been catastrophic,

408
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: but there was somehow an acorn had rolled into the

409
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:29,119
Speaker 1: bullet hole and a tiny little oak tree was sprouting up.

410
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:35,920
Speaker 1: Now this is let's see, this would have been let's

411
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Speaker 1: see sixty It would have been well in excess of

412
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Speaker 1: one hundred years after he had been dropped there the

413
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Speaker 1: Battle of ringo Old Gap, I think was in eighteen

414
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Speaker 1: sixty four. Dave's teeth were pristine, beautifully white. He didn't

415
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Speaker 1: have like carry stentition or anything like you think of

416
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Speaker 1: from back then. With rotted teeth is very young. We estimated.

417
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 1: I was with a forensic anthropologist. Now, many of the

418
00:27:04,960 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: bones were missing. We didn't have all the components, but

419
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,959
Speaker 1: the key one was there relative to his head. His

420
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: teeth were all intact. But yet I've seen cases where,

421
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 1: particularly if bone is compromised to the point where it's

422
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:20,720
Speaker 1: broken down, maybe there was a dismemberment, and that core,

423
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: the marrow of the bone has been so compromised that

424
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,640
Speaker 1: it's a shell of what it had been, and that

425
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 1: you know, that would lead to the bone being compromised

426
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 1: structurally where you know, it's just not it's not going

427
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 1: to be as robust and it's not going to exist

428
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:43,959
Speaker 1: as long as say something that was encapsulated in an area.

429
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 1: You take King Richard the Third's body and let's face it, Dave,

430
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: he was buried inside of a church, an old church,

431
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: an abandoned church, but still a church nonetheless adjacent to

432
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: the choir loft, and it was an entunement, Okay, so

433
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:07,359
Speaker 1: he was partially protected and for you know, hundreds of

434
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: years until the you know, Henry the eighth, you know,

435
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 1: had the church raised during the Protestant Reformation, and you know,

436
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:19,960
Speaker 1: as it turned out. That's why he's famously called the

437
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 1: King in the car park because they literally assphalted over

438
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:28,360
Speaker 1: the top of the body and so it was kind

439
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:30,439
Speaker 1: of preserved in there. But you can have bodies that

440
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: are surface burials or surface abandonments essentially that will go

441
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: down to the skeleton and for a number of reasons,

442
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 1: you won't find any elements at all. A lot of

443
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:45,959
Speaker 1: it is just going to go to just dumb blind

444
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 1: luck as to whether or not you're going to find

445
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 1: something under normal circumstances. And I used, people can't see

446
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 1: me right now, but I've got normal in air quotes,

447
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:59,959
Speaker 1: because in depth investigation, there is no normal or ideal circumstances.

448
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 1: You're always dealing in the abnormal. If you have a

449
00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: body in a controlled environment, say for instance, like the

450
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:10,600
Speaker 1: body farm, where they can in case a body and

451
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: they will start with a fully intact body that's fully

452
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: fleshed out, and then they will watch this body decay

453
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:18,440
Speaker 1: over a period of time and they have a method

454
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 1: to keep vermin away. Now you can't keep insects away.

455
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 1: That's going to happen, but they're not going to impact

456
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: the skeletal remains as much as a soft tissue, you'll

457
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 1: still have skeletal remains that will be there. And to

458
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: kind of watch them go through this process. It's amazing

459
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:40,560
Speaker 1: when you watch like time laps on a decaying body.

460
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:43,840
Speaker 1: How long it takes, and it's going to be variable.

461
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 1: I can't you know, if anyone's wondering, well, how long

462
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 1: does it take? I can't tell you how long it's

463
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 1: going to take because somebody's dependent upon the environment that

464
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 1: you're in. My go skeletal after six months. But you

465
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 1: can have others like where you have the bodies in

466
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 1: the permafrosts that were buried in the I can't remember

467
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: which expedition it was in the Arctic they recovered those remains, Dave.

468
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: These were sailors in the British Navy. They had died,

469
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 1: probably because of lead poisoning because they had just discovered

470
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 1: canning and they had sealed the cans and lead and

471
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: there was they found. They recovered journals from this abandoned

472
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 1: ship where the guys were going nuts. I think it

473
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 1: was like the Captain's lock where they were just going

474
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 1: out of their mind. It was lead poisoning. But anyway,

475
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: the two first the two first guys that died, they

476
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 1: buried them. They dug a hole in the permafrost covered

477
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: them up. And man, I'm not saying that, you know,

478
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: you could take them out and you know, and that

479
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: they would be perfect to view. But you see this,

480
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: and I encourage anybody to go take a look at

481
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 1: these images. Their bodies are beautifully preserved, not skeletonized at all.

482
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: They still have what the remnant of soft tissue that's

483
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 1: left behind. All of their hair is intact. Their uniforms

484
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 1: are intact. You can still appreciate that it is a

485
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:14,720
Speaker 1: classic pre eighteen fifties British sailor's uniforms. Oh, it is remarkable.

486
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 1: And the uniforms are made out of wool and linen

487
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 1: and it's all perfectly preserved. So it all depends. It's

488
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 1: heavily dependent upon where you are, where you are, and

489
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: so it's you know, and many times, listen, I can't

490
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 1: tell you how many times I've been out on scenes

491
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: with colleagues and we have said, boy, we were really lucky,

492
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 1: and gently that when as that refers to decomposition, we

493
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:44,920
Speaker 1: would say that in terms of we're really lucky that

494
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 1: we have anything remaining. It's hard for us to truly

495
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 1: understand how this could actually still be here after all

496
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:55,479
Speaker 1: of this time. But bone is very resilient. It's not

497
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 1: as resilient of teeth. So what I tell my students

498
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 1: at Jacksonville State is that if you're looking for a

499
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: carrier for DNA, bone is a leather briefcase and teeth

500
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: are a steel briefcase.

501
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 3: Really that different?

502
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is, and teeth are so much more resilient.

503
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 1: And I hold that if we ever do kind of

504
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: reincarnate any of these animals that you know, mast dons

505
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: and all that sort of stuff, I think that perhaps

506
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 1: with future technology, maybe not the technology we have right now. Uh,

507
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 1: you know, you could probably clone clone, clone a mammoth

508
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 1: or I never know the difference.

509
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 3: You're really not going to England.

510
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 2: You're going to a deserted island somewhere off the coast

511
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:45,160
Speaker 2: of Florida.

512
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 3: It's set up park.

513
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 1: Yeah no, no, I'm not. I don't have that much time,

514
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 1: no motivation, I had, no, Yeah, that's kind of that's

515
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: kind of where I am. I think with this process

516
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 1: of of decomposition. But listen, it is to get past

517
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: the horror of it, if you, if you ever can.

518
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 1: I love to talk about my students and their their

519
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 1: view of the world and the world they're going to

520
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 1: be entering into and forensics and I you know, I've

521
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 1: often told them the prize awaits those who can bear

522
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: through the horror of what you have to observe, and

523
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 1: the prize is what the science is going to tell you.

524
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 1: And there are not too many things more horrific. And

525
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: I'm talking about you know, they are horrible things that

526
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: we bear witness to in the immediate where we have

527
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 1: you know, poor unfortunate little ones that are harmed, and

528
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: we see those kind of traumatic events. But the horror

529
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: of being present in a room where the decaying remain,

530
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: or out in the woods where the decay and remain.

531
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:52,880
Speaker 1: If you can get past that initial shock to your system,

532
00:33:54,040 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 1: the beauty that exist in the perfection of nature and

533
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: what it tells us is beyond measure. I'm Joseph Scott

534
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 1: Morgan and this is Bodybacks