Thomas' Death's Acre Essay

In this book, Dr. Bill Bass, takes the reader through his interesting life as a forensic anthropologist, and how he came to form the Body Farm, while he was teaching at the University of Tennessee. Beginning as an undergraduate, Dr. Bass grew a great interest in anthropology, and developed close relationships with his teachers and mentors. One of his first experiences with this type of work, was with one of his teachers, while examining a car crash victim’s body, and identifying whose it was. This sparked an immediate interest that would lead Bill Bass towards his new life journey. Another one of his cases was re-examining the Lindbergh child’s bones, at the request of the widow of the accused kidnapper. This was interesting how easily he was able to extract clues and other information such as age, so quickly, as he confirmed the child’s age at 20 months. Even more intriguing was how Dr. Bass, taught his students to identify the sex, race, age, and stature of the remains in order to set a good basis for further investigation. He was able to determine all of this from a femur, and a skull with a jaw. Based on his observations of the shape and other characteristics of the skull, as well as the length of the femur, Bass was able to conclude that this murder victim was a black woman, about 5 foot six, in her early thirties. With this information police were able to conclude that these remains were Mary Louise Downing’s, who was reported missing in the area. Although Dr. Bass deals with corpses in such a routine and ordinary manner, he does hold great respect for the bodies he works on, and even thinks about Mary Louise often, for he now uses her skull, everywhere he teaches as a precedent, to show others how to solve murder puzzles elsewhere in the world. It was moments like these, along with his passion for his work, that made him continue his career, and expand his field at the University of Tennessee, and later create the humble beginnings of the worlds only Anthropology Research Facility, Death’s Acre.