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The Body Farm

Written by DeadGirl
Tuesday, 06 June 2006
Farm Is Used By Scientists And Police Investigators By Joy Purdy (CBS4 News) KNOXVILLE, TN In a nondescript field in Knoxville, Tennessee, people are literally dying to get through the gate, and they are followed by high-powered scientists and police investigators. "There's a morbid curiosity about what exactly goes on behind the wooden gates here," says Joe Heffner, the man in charge of the place. The fenced-in field is not a place for people with weak stomachs. "Can you hear that?” Heffner asks a visitor? “That's the maggots." But the field is no tourist attraction for horror film buffs. It’s not something the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce promotes. The general public is not invited. Considering what's inside, Joe Heffner’s research facility at the University of Tennessee is not a place you'd expect to find nestled on a picturesque college campus. What in most places would be considered a graveyard is actually a place for investigators to learn about death, and its effect on the human body. They have plenty of research material. “Right now we have about 153, and about 50 of those are buried and the rest are on the surface,” Heffner says. "It's not a well groomed cemetery because that's not the point of the place. The point of it is to see decomposition in its natural setting." Joe Heffner is essentially the landlord of the research facility some call The Body Farm, which began with one body some 35 years ago. It has been helping solve crimes ever since. Heffner says it is a popular place, "We have researchers from all over the world who come just to see our collection." Some bodies are buried under concrete slabs, so the effect can be observed. In one area, there is the shell a car, and a building. The FBI wanted to be able to study the effect of decomposition on bodies in a car trunk It sounds morbid, but for crime scene investigators, the Body Farm is a classroom. "Nowhere else in the country can they get the training that they get here with actual human remains, " says Heffner. Detective William Lenhart came to Knoxville for the corpses. The real-life crime scene investigator from Delaware says the farm is an eye-opening experience “It's helped scientifically, its helped forensically,” he says. Once you know facilities like this exist, the first question people ask is where Heffner gets the bodies. It astounds some to learn that people actually donate their bodies for the cause, much like an organ donor program. Those accepted give the ultimate gift to police science. “We get phone calls saying I want to donate my body,” Heffner says, “and those are the same people who end up out here." http://cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_139082554.html

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Taphophilia?

taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)

ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"

DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries