RESEARCH BLOG.

Many forensic anthropology and disaster victim identification texts reduce search to a single procedural step: “Search for remains or evidence.” The brevity implies that searching is straightforward when, in reality, outdoor searches involve dynamic environments, changing remains, and complex assumptions about how bodies behave after death. Simplistic thinking about searching can cause increases in time, money, and manpower expenditures. It can also lead to poor results for t

The case of a surgical implant found inside a Queensland crocodile has highlighted the challenges forensic scientists face when trying to identify human remains without much evidence to go on. Did the crocodile eat a human with a surgical implant? If so, could the implant — a metal plate and some screws — be used to identify the victim? Or did the implant come from a dog? Death by crocodile is reasonably rare. In the past decade, there have been about 67 crocodile attacks i

Between 70-80,000 people are reported missing in Canada each year, including more than 50,000 children. Despite these numbers, there are only a handful of dedicated missing persons units within law enforcement across the country. Toronto, Canada’s most populous city, only recently established a missing persons unit in 2018 following the arrest of serial killer, Bruce McArthur, and the inaction towards the missing people within the LGBTQ+ community. Following the cases of Robe

My work as a forensic anthropologist in Ireland brings me into contact with the remains of those generally described as 'the missing.' Missing persons – or misper as they are often called in Search and Rescue jargon – may have gone missing for various reasons. In most cases, they are found alive and well relatively quickly. However, other cases may turn into long-term missing cases and even missing-presumed-dead cases. Reasons for going missing vary greatly and can range from