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Objective:

To observe and record the effects of decomposition on a mock deceased as well as examine and record evi-

dence.

Exhibit Preparation:

I used a 2.8 lb. half chicken that I bought at price chopper - nicknamed Fabio. Fabio was inicted with 10 stab

wounds with a kitchen butcher knife partially severing his only wing. I then dressed Fabio in a knitted hat made

of synthetic bers (Fig.1). I dumped his body in a compost bin which was over half full of rotten kitchen

scraps. I secured the compost by placing a board with a large rock on it. There was already plenty of insect ac-tivity and moisture in the compost bin since temperatures were above freezing. Insects began crawling on Fabio

within minutes after he was placed in the compost (Fig.2).

Figure 1 Day 1 May 15th, 2011 The mock deceased Fabio D. Fryer and the murder weapon

Figure 2 Day 1 May 15th, 2011. The body dumping site.

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Weather conditions It was 56 degrees and raining steadily on the day he was dumped.

Date & Time Fabio was placed in the compost bin on May 15, 2011 at 3:15 pm.

Wounds Inicted I purposely inicted some shallow as well as some deeper wounds. I also purposely

made sure I stabbed in places to hit some bones to see if I could nd the evidence later. I thought at the time

I would probably be recording evidence of these wounds in his esh later, but unfortunately there was very

little left to observe but bones.

Overview/Timeline:

5/15-5/22 - Week One It rained almost every day this week. When I put the exhibit in the compost it wasreally wet both the compost and the exhibit.

5/22-5/29 - Week Two There is active maggot activity on my exhibit on Sunday (Fig. 3 & 4) and by

Wednesday all of the esh is gone the only thing I recognize is the thigh bone. If I had not taken the photo

on Sunday and seen the maggots at work, I would have thought that Fabio was stolen! Amazingly there is

very little odor besides the normal compost smell. (Fig. 5)

Figure 3 Day 7 - Photo of exhibit May 22, 2011 maggots are at work on the body

Figure 4 Day 7 - Close up of maggots they are eating the esh under the skin the skin appears to be sepa -

rating where the wounds were.

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6/5-6/12 Week Four What I think is a piece of skin is shriveled some more, the hat appears to be degrading

slightly, but still very recognizable as clothing. The thigh bone is still very obvious but other than that there is

not much to indicate anything is there. Growth of some kind of mold has started on the bones and hat probably

helped along by all the rain we have had (Fig.8). There are a large number of ies in the compost, which I am

guessing are some kind of blow y based on information I found on an insect website BugGuide.net

Figure 8 Day 27 - June 11th, 2011 There appear to be some visitors. I believe the maggots have hatched

there are what appears to be an abnormally large number of ies in the compost.

6/12-6/18 Week Five Not much change, except there is even less to indicate that there was a chicken here. The

mold growth has increased a great deal and everything is rapidly sinking in the bin (Fig.9).

Figure 9 Day 34 A photo of the deceased right before I extracted him from the compost on June 18th, 2011.

There is literally no odor whatsoever from the deceased.

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Figure 10 - Sample Crime Scene Sketch

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Figure 11 - Photo of the Crime Scene facing North

Figure 12 - Photo of the Crime Scene facing West

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Figure 13 - Close up of the Burial Container

Figure 14 - The deceased as found on June 18th, 2011

Figure 15 - Close up of the deceased as found on June 18th, 2011

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Figure 16 - Photo of the burial site after clothing was removed.

Figure 17 - The clothing found at the body dumping site

Figure 18 - Close up of the clothing found at the body

dumping site the bones and egg casings from the maggots

are stuck in the clothing.

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Figure 19 - All of the bones collected from the deceased.

Figure 20 - The bone in the upper right corner has a fragment

chipped out of it possibly made by a sharp object.

Figure 21 - A large crack in a bone found from the deceased

possibly made by a sharp object

Findings:

Clothing - The clothing was degraded and covered with some kind of mold; it had also lost some of its color

even though it was not really exposed to the weather for the duration of the project.

The clothing also had bug casings and bones stuck in it. It looked like the majority of the maggots (or at

least a good number of them) had hatched in Fabios hat. I even found one single maggot living in the bers

(see Fig. 19 bottom center). Maybe a second generation? Even though most of the material was still remain -

ing, the hat looked a lot different than it did the day I put it in the compost.

Bones The bones had a lot of dirt stuck to them. It was hard to pick them out of the compost and the hat

and I used the chopsticks to do this so I would not break them (or have to touch them!) I placed everything I

could nd on the tray and then photographed them.

Wounds As I stated before I made a large number of wounds in my exhibit in hopes I would be able to see

something. Of course, I realized this wasnt going to happen after Day 10. In the end I was unable to see

much evidence of the wounds I made to Fabio after the maggots removed all of his esh, with the exception

of two bones that I recovered which had sharp breaks in them. These two bones were the only evidence I

found of the knife wounds (Fig. 20 & 21)

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Conclusion:

What I found to be the biggest learning experience from this project was the difculty in collecting evidence

outside. First of all, you are dealing with the elements, I was about to go out and start this on Saturday when

a huge thundershower blew in and I had to wait an hour to start. I was then bitten by bugs while I tried to

keep my evidence from being contaminated and nd a way to take notes and hang on to everything at the

same time. The other thing I found out was that the elements really wreak havoc on your evidence. My de-

ceased and most of my evidence of how it he was murdered was eliminated by insects. If it took only 3-5

days for a 2.8 lb. fryer to be completely eaten by insects, I can estimate that in roughly 30-60 days a 150lb.

human body could experience similar decay under perfect conditions. I would also assume that without

the protection of a covered compost bin that other scavengers would also play a part in eradicating a lot of

evidence.

To me putting the photos from Day 1 and Day 34 side by side really models how rapidly a body would

decay in real life (see next page). This realistically exhibited to me what investigators have to deal with in

actual situations like this. Even comparing the other items in my compost bin to the body, the newspaper,

eggshells and even some of the peelings and scraps degraded much slower than Fabio did. Overall I was

surprised at how rapidly a lot of the evidence was eliminated.