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Forensic Anthropology in Los Angeles County, California

1998-2003

Elizabeth Miller, Ph.D.Consulting Anthropologist

Los Angeles County Department of Coronerand

Assistant Professor of AnthropologyCalifornia State University, Los Angeles

Forensic Anthropology is…

• The application of anthropological techniques to modern human remains for law enforcement.

• In general, the forensic anthropologist provides a basic biological profile to aid in identification of the decedent.

• Your textbook uss the definition of “skeletal remains resulting from unexplained deaths”. Why would this be incorrect?

The “ten” questions (I’ve added to the original ten codified by Snow (1982). My additions are in red).

• Is it bone?• Is it human?• Is it of forensic value?• What bones are

present?• What is the MNI?• What is the sex?• What is the age?• What is the ancestry?• What is the height?

• Are there any anatomical anomalies, pathologies, etc.?

• Are there any indicators of behavior?

• What is the PMI?• Evidence for cause of

death?• Evidence for manner of

death?

Five Main Objectives

• Ancestry, age, sex, and height• Trauma information to determine cause and

manner• Postmortem interval• Locating and recovering buried or surface

remains• Positive identification

History

• Thomas Dwight (1843-1911)– “Father of Forensic Anthropology in the United

States”– Wrote articles and essays and lectured on

human skeletal identification– Researched determination of height, sex,

stature, age at death

Formative Period

• Early 1800s to 1938• Parkman murder of 1849

– Oliver Wendell Holmes I and Jeffries Wyman

• Leutgert case of 1897– George Dorsey

• Harris Wilder, Bert Wentworth, Paul Stevenson, Ales Hrdlicka, Earnest Hooton, T. Wingate Todd, Robert Terry

Consolidation Period

• 1939-1971• Began with publication of Guide to the Identification

of Human Skeletal Material by Krogman– Written for the FBI

• WWII dead were badly decomposed, but needed to be identified, so CILHI was established

• Korean War dead, new CIL in Japan, several studies and publications

• Research in depth on military dead

Modern Period

• 1972 to present• Establishment of the Physical Anthropology

Section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in 1972

• American Board of Forensic Anthropology created in 1977

• Forensic Anthropology Data Bank at UT Knoxville

Data Gathering Methods

• Anthroposcopy = Visual inspection of the human body

• Osteometry = measurement of human bone• Chemical methods• Histology = study of the microstructure of

bone and teeth

• Decision table helps researchers judge the relative importance of information

• Range chart uses multiple ranges of estimates so a central tendency can be determined

• Indexes use numerical expressions of shape to compare between groups

• Discriminant functions calculate a numerical expression of shape

• Regression uses one value to determine another

Forensic Anthropology in LA

• Six basic types of cases on which I work– Human vs. Non-human identification

– “Wet” Cases

– Decedent Searches

– Skeletal Remains/Surface Field Recovery

– Buried Body Recovery

– Burned Body Recovery

For The Other Types of Cases

– Decedent Searches– Skeletal Remains/Surface Field Recovery– Buried Body Recovery– Burned Body Recovery

– There is SORT, the Special Operations Response Team

The Special Operations Response Team

• SORT founded in 2001– SORT grew out of the former Los Angeles

County Coroner Disaster Response Team (DRT), which was started in 1996• DRT covered only mass fatalities• All members of DRT were also members of the

federal Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT)

• Because of the large number of “special” cases the DRT was expanded into the present SORT

SORT

Craig HarveyChief of Operations

Juan JimenezAsst. Chief of Operations

Erik ArbuthnotSORT Commander

InvestigatorsDietz, Elias,

Machian, Kato, Kadesand Corral

PhotographerGrijalva, Fernandez

Forensic AttendantsMaruffoPena

AnthropologistsMiller

Buffington

CriminalistsSchuchardt,

Fritz, Sandberg

SORT

• Mass Fatality Incidents

• Multiple Decedent Assistance

• Special Decedent Recovery (includes burned bodies)

• Buried Body Recovery

• Decedent Searches• Public Relations

Events

Investigations

• Traditionally one Coroner Field Investigator was assigned per call regardless of the type of case or number of fatalities involved.

• The Investigator on cases involving specialized resources was forced to rely on other agencies’ personnel, equipment, and resources, and therefore often lost control of the crime scene and lost decision making power as the other agencies moved in to assist in the processing of the scene.

• SORT provides all necessary equipment and personnel to the Investigator.

Criminalistics

• SORT provides skilled manual labor available 24 hours a day to assist the Criminalist, with team members able to recognize items of potential evidential value and thereby prevent accidental contamination of a scene by support staff.

• In addition, the pre-organized SORT allows for efficiency in processing a scene.

Pathology

• From the pathologist's perspective, the importance of a team such as SORT is twofold: – The team will effectively document the recovery

and the scene– The pathologist knows the team understands

his/her requirements and preferences and will maximize the evidence collected to be used in his/her efforts

Anthropology

• The main concern of the Archaeologist in the field is total recovery of the decedent, no matter how scattered, total recovery of artifacts associated with the decedent, and total recovery of associated evidence.

• SORT allows the Archaeologist more flexibility in applying archaeological methods and techniques to the scene.

• The Anthropologist requires remains as complete as possible to construct a biological profile and aid in positive identification of the decedent.

• Knowing that a specially-trained team is performing the recovery allows these consultants to concentrate on their jobs, not on what everyone else is doing.

• The trust engendered allows a recovery to proceed at a fast pace without the consultants constantly having to check the efforts of other personnel.

Problem Cases Prior to SORT

• Buried body recovery, decedent searches, and recovery under special circumstances were especially difficult prior to SORT.

• Without the proper personnel or equipment, ready on short notice, personnel present at scene must take on tasks for which they may not have proper training, or for which they are unprepared.

Outside Agencies

• Even after the formation of SORT, but prior to wide publication of it’s existence, outside agencies often assumed and/or maintained control of scenes in which a body was found.– Such circumstances made complete recovery

and identification of decedents more difficult for Coroner personnel.