There he began the formal study of donated corpses. He was given use of a barn on the Agriculture Campus. Bass went to the Dean with his proposal to study death and decay. Bass knew more research was needed on how the body reacts to environmental factors after death.ĭeath is a touchy subject, but Dr. The iron casket had been sealed shut when buried and thus delayed his body’s deterioration until grave robbers disturbed him. Shy, who was from a wealthy family and had been embalmed, a rarity at the time of his death. They thought he might be a victim of recent foul play. Police were confused, as this 150-year-old corpse still had flesh on his bones. He was called upon to help identify the headless corpse found in a cemetery atop the grave of a Civil War soldier, Col. Bass forward in documenting and studying the body’s decaying after death. He realized that studying death and how the body reacted to it in varying environments was important. He frequently was called upon by the police to help identify bodies or unusual circumstances of death. Bass was chair of the department of Forensic Anthropology at the University. Dawnie Wolfe Steadman, the Department’s current director) are invaluable.” She continues, “Think about what the Body Farm truly is: a place where ordinary citizens become law enforcement trainers by selflessly donating their bodies so that law enforcement around the world can learn the complex dynamics of human decomposition in all of its stages in every season and element with factors such as snow, water, animals and soil! What a gift it is to the family members of the donors to know they are helping solve thousands of homicide cases”. Sheryl McCollum is an Emmy Award-winning Crime Scene Investigator and the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute director. The University of Tennessee’s Body Farm does groundbreaking work not just in the areas of how the dead decay but in forensic identification, skeletal analysis, and crime scene study. It has become as famous as its founder, Bill Bass, and is internationally acclaimed. The Farm exists to compile information on, among other things, how the dead decay. It is part of the campus of The University of Tennessee. Jon Jefferson and Bill Bass, Co-authors of books about the Body Farm Nestled behind locked gates and high fences in Knoxville, TN., is one of the world’s most famous crime and forensic investigative laboratories, commonly known as the Body Farm. Using some state-of-the-art technology and science, investigators solve the most perplexing of crimes with relative ease and before the final credits run.

Many may not know where much of the research takes place that makes solving crimes possible.

For most of us, the forensics experts use to solve crimes are only witnessed in television shows or movies.

Beyond the Body Farm by William M. Bass