So we are here at the Anthropology Research
Facility at the University of Tennessee.
This is the first human decomposition facility
in the world.
This was established in 1981.
We're actually celebrating our 35th anniversary
of our
body donation program.
For the Body Farm to open this up to us--to
NCIS--it's huge.
This is, I think, one of the first NCIS-only
classes.
To have eighteen of us here at one time really
gives us the ability to take this back to
our field offices, because we're from all
over the place.
And when we have a major scene, we've got
individuals scattered all over the country
that can apply this knowledge and be on scene
immediately rather than waiting for someone
who has had the training to get there hours
or maybe even a day later.
I've been absolutely amazed at the amount
of respect that's shown to the human donors,
by not only the faculty but the students.
The entire process is very respectful.
Everyone is very grateful to be able to use
these human donors to study human decomposition
in the recovery of human remains.
So, it's very impressive to work with the
folks here.
So the training that we offer for law enforcement
is very unique.
They have the experience of working with experts--we
do this every day.
And we're also teachers, so we're fairly good
at relaying the knowledge that we have in
a way that law enforcement can appreciate,
because we also work with law enforcement
every day on cases.
So unlike donating to medical schools,
where the bodies are only used for about six
months or maybe a year, then they are cremated
and returned to the families, there's really
no end to the gift of body donation to the
program here.
Research on the skeletons could go on forever.
So we were able to bring our 3-D technology
out here to the Body Farm and test it out
in a training scenario before we deploy to
the field.
We've got our 3-D scanner set up on tripods,
we do a 3-D scan of the burial site itself,
so while that scanner is scanning, it's collecting
billions and billions of points, both laser
distance data as well as color data, and we're
able to combine that into a 3-D point cloud.
We're able to reproduce that at a later time,
which is great for courtroom presence, kind
of countering that CSI effect in the courtroom.
It allows you to go back months, years, decades
later in a cold-case scenario and examine
the scene as it was to a very high degree
of accuracy.
