What lies beneath
<p>Elizabeth Herink, with the Ada County Sheriffs Office, left, and Sara Hill, a Boise City Police CSI, excavate a plastic skeleton during a forensic anthropology class Friday at Celebration Park in Melba, Idaho. The two day class was attended by about 20 students that are law enforcement officials and medical examiners. The class helps give a better understanding of how to properly excavate a site with human remains.</p>
NAMPA (AP) - A two-day workshop on how to excavate human remains left law enforcement with information on how to preserve a crime scene and gave them a better understanding of the resources available to help solve crimes.
Medical examiners, police detectives, crime scene analysts, a coroner and officials from the Bureau of Land Management attended the Thursday and Friday classes at Celebration Park.
Beki Jumonville, an anthropologist with the Ada County Coroner's Office, led the classes. She said it was important the officers learned there are anthropologists who can travel across the state to assist on a crime scene.
"We really hit home with law enforcement that it's important for us to be able to go to scene with them," said Jumonville. "We really realized there are several problems. People don't know when to call an expert in and don't know there are people available for that."
After a lecture on forensic anthropology, law enforcement practiced excavating two plastic skeletons. They learned to flag and document possible signs of ground disturbance or locate recently dug graves.
"I think (detectives) don't realize what information we can gather in the process," Jumonville said. "We don't want to leave behind the one bone that has that trauma mark. The human body has a lot of really small bones. It's important to find those."
Through examination of a skeleton, anthropologists can determine a person's sex, age, ancestry and signs of trauma. Bones can show signs of penetrating wounds, such as stabbings and gunshots that could be a cause of death.
Bones also have remaining callouses from old fractures. If a person's teeth cannot be found to identify a body with dental records, old medical records can sometimes tell detectives if a person had a fracture in a specific part of their body.
Comparing medical records with the skeleton effectively identifies the deceased person. Bones could also determine if people suffered any long-term abuse or repeated injuries throughout their lives.
BLM officials were given information during the workshop on different ways to handle the bones of deceased Native Americans.
There are very specific laws regarding the excavation and handling of any of Native American remains, Jumonville said.
"The biggest thing during the (workshop) is people kept saying that we didn't have an anthropologist that would travel all over the state," she said. "But we do (travel) and work with interagency connections."