ISU helps train lawmen in dead body investigation

Idaho State University anthropology faculty met with law enforcement officials on ISU’s Red Hill, next to Interstate 15, Tuesday. They were teaching lawmen how to find dead bodies in a patch of sagebrush and mixed grasses.

The group examined three plots of land set aside to teach officers how to identify and preserve sites where bodies have been hidden or buried. One site included a buried fake skeleton. Another site feature buried “skeletonized pig bone and mummified tissue.” A decomposing pig carcass had been buried on a third site and forensic evidence was scattered on the surface of the area.

The group included about 20 personnel from the FBI, Salt Lake City Evidence Recovery Team, a deputy coroner, and representatives of the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Department and Blackfoot and Pocatello Police. The “teachers” were ISU anthropology faculty member Christian Petersen and visiting assistant professor of forensic anthropology Amy Michael.

“We had the pig buried out here in December and it is in an advanced stage of decomposition,” said Michael, who is a trained archeologist and forensic anthropologist. “So, what these participants are learning is proper archeological excavation methods. When there is a shallow burial, you just can’t start digging into it or you are going to ruin the crime scene. We are teaching them how to take each of these units down nice and level, record what they see, photograph it, map it, document it and then collect it.”

Michael said the project started last October when the team was called out with the FBI and Salt Lake City detectives for a case in Fort Hall.

Dave Bodily is an FBI agent based in Pocatello.

“The most important thing for us, is it actually highlights our limitations,” said Bodily. “We now have this liaison partnership so we know the experts to call. These guys are an absolutely fantastic resource. To have them this close and be able to reach out to them saves all kinds of time and effort.”