"Beyond the Body Farm: A Legendary Bone Detective Explores Murders, Mysteries, and the Revolution in Forensic Science"
by Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson

In 1974, the bones of three men were excavated from the rubble of an ancient palace in Iran. Bill Bass, professor emeritus of forensic anthropology at UT, was called in to investigate the 12,000-year-old crime scene. This case, along with other “cold cases” Bass has investigated throughout his career, is explored in his latest book, “Beyond the Body Farm.”

While Bass’ first nonfiction book, “Death’s Acre,” used his cases to tell about his career in forensic anthropology, his newest book describes cases that took up to 30 years to solve.

“It doesn’t work like ‘C.S.I.’ where you get it done in an hour. This is one of those things that takes a lot of time to get done,” he said.

The Iranian case involved two sword-wielding men and another carrying a golden bowl. They appeared to have been running across the roof while the palace was on fire. When the roof collapsed the three men were trapped and waited to be uncovered thousands of years later.

Bass was summoned to decide whether the palace guards were trying to catch a thief stealing the golden bowl or if the bowl was being saved from destruction.

“That was a whodunit 12,000 years ago,” Bass said. He would not disclose the conclusion of the ancient caper so as to not spoil the book.

But not all of the cases described in the book involve cases from the distant past. One case involves a young girl from Kansas whose bones were found scattered in a field in 1975.

Only 14 of her bones were ever found. Bass’ job was to determine if all of the bones found in the field belonged to the same person.

Even though Bass retired from UT in 1994, he is still involved in forensic anthropology. He said he testifies in court cases three to five times a year. Currently, Bass is working on two cases involving time-of-death and one case involving bone identification.

“I couldn’t go home and sit and do nothing. That would drive me nuts,” he said.

“Beyond the Body Farm” is Bass’ fourth collaboration with author Jon Jefferson. Bass said he supplies the science, and Jefferson provides the writing.

Writing under the pen-name “Jefferson Bass” they have co-authored two nonfiction and two fiction books. Their third fiction book, “The Devil’s Bones,” is scheduled to be released in February 2008.

Bass said writing the nonfiction books takes a lot more work than the fiction books.

“In fiction you can make up whatever you want to. In nonfiction you have to make sure all your facts are straight,” he said.

Bass was a leader in the field of forensic anthropology before he began working on forensic anthropology books, said Richard Jantz, professor of anthropology and director of UT’s Forensic Anthropology Center. He said Bass’ exposure to forensics early in his career allowed him to develop his professional interest in anthropology.

Bass founded the Forensic Anthropology Center, better known as the “Body Farm” in 1971. Bass said he founded the Body Farm because police kept asking him the time of death for bodies at crime scenes.

Since Bass did not have any in-depth understanding about decomposition rates, he wanted to start a research facility to study body decomposition under a variety of situations.

The information Bass has gained through his research combined with the resources at his disposal allow him to combat the mysteries of any crime he investigates. Bass said if he cannot determine what happened to a body, no one else will be able to either.

“If I can’t get the data, nobody else can because the data doesn’t exist,” he said.

http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/showarticle.php?articleid=51988