Lesson 4 - Crime Case Studies Involving Forensic Anthropology and Forensic Entomology

Overview


Forensic anthropology and forensic entomology are two unique, specialized fields of forensic science that help law enforcement officials investigate the most tragic of all crimes – unknown deaths. These two fields involve the careful scientific analysis of dead human bodies. Perhaps in an attempt to make their difficult job somewhat easier, forensic anthropologists and forensic entomologists use technical terms to describe the bodies and body parts they analyze. This specialized group of scientists acknowledge and respect the evidence they handle as important because each corpse is an individual person.

This lesson focuses on three criminal case studies that involve forensic anthropology evidence and forensic entomology evidence. Two of the crime case studies are based on actual events in history:

  • The Bones That Were Worth a Thousand Words
  • The Girl, the Army Sergeant, and The Bugs

The third crime case study is fictional and is entitled The Farmhouse Murder.

You are expected to answer related questions about these case studies in your assignment booklet.

“I have gazed on the face of death innumerable times, witnessed it in all its grim manifestations. Death has no power to freeze my heart, jangle my nerves, or sway my reason. Death to me is no terror of the night but a daylit companion, a familiar condition, a process obedient to scientific laws and answerable to scientific inquiry.”

Dr. William Maples (Forensic Anthropologist)

- Source: William R. Maples & Michael Browning: Dead Men Do Tell Tales:
The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist.
Random House, Inc. (1997)

The student will…

  • Analyze a historical crime case(s) or fictional crime case(s) that involves forensic anthropology and/or forensic entomology

Glossary Term: Infestation

  • The development and reproduction of insects on the surface of or within a body or in the clothing

Glossary Term: Decompose / Decomposition

  • To rot or decay because of being broken down by microorganisms

Glossary Term: Corpse

  • A dead body; used to refer specifically to a human body in the early period after death

Glossary Term: Carrion

  • The dead and rotting body of an animal or human

Glossary Term: Colonize

  • To establish a colony; a group of living organisms of the same type living together

Glossary Term: Succession

  • The gradual replacement of one type of living organism or plant by another through natural processes over time