[Leslie] Everyone dies
and when it's our time to go
some of us will be embalmed, buried
some cremated.
But there's a place where our bodies still tell stories long after death
and it's in our own backyard.
This week, we take you to The Body Farm.
[Robin] We continue our series on the
forensic anthropology center, The Body Farm.
[John] And tonight, Leslie Ackerson gives us
a rare day in the life look inside the gates.
[Music]
[Jantz] The facility is not anything like what you imagine it is.
Yes, we have a lot of...
dead bodies out there.
[Vidoli] You know, you have these two fences.
You have the privacy fence.
and then the chain link with the razor wire on top to keep people out.
So when you first walk in,
you're on a nice gravel pathway
and then your focus shifts
as soon as you start looking a little to the left and to the right.
The gravel pathway continues.
You start seeing black plastic on the ground
and you realize underneath that black plastic
is where we have placed the donors.
[Leslie] The Forensic Anthropology Center in Knoxville, Tennessee
has been the final resting place
for thousands over the last 40 years.
[Vidoli] It is, I think, this interesting sort of juxtaposition
where you feel like you're going for a walk in the woods.
There's these trails and there's trees
and it's a really nice scenery.
But there are various burials or surface remains around you.
[Jantz] People have these pictures of, you know,
it being horribly smelly and just being awful
and it's not.
You're just out in the woods.
You can be standing right next to one that's decomposing
and not smell it.
Or you can be standing 10 feet away and really smell it.
[Steadman] We have typically between about 150 and 200 donors
who are out of the facility at any one particular time.
[Leslie] Some bodies are exposed to Mother Nature.
Weather, temperature, and insects
all play an important role in the progression of decay.
[Davis] We are out there doing research, doing science
to learn more about the human condition.
Decomposition is all part of the process of life and death.
[Owings] You can just see all the hundreds of people
who made that altruistic gift
to give their bodies to the advancement of science and forensic science.
People think it's a spooky place
but I actually think it's a place that's just full of hope
and it's very peaceful.
[Leslie] A peaceful place that is also quite busy.
Not a day goes by that someone isn't at The Body Farm.
It's not a place you can go visit
unless you're one of the many coroners, detectives, and investigators
who travel from all over the world
to gain valuable skills in crime scene investigation.
Whether it's estimating time of death,
learning to identify skeletal remains,
or excavating mass graves.
[Vidoli] I'm really proud of our training program.
We have students who are law enforcement
and have lots of experience under their belts
and other students who have never seen, you know, a deceased individual before.
We are able to modify our courses
to really match their experience and comfort level.
[Leslie] On this day, it's a group of experts from south of the border.
[Vidoli] We have crime scene investigators, anthropologists, archaeologists,
individuals who work in the kidnapping units in Mexico
and they're working on a burial.
They need to find it,
excavate it, document it.
So my team, right now, is working on
troweling away at the dirt and screening it.
Hopefully, encounter some human remains.
[Leslie] What they learn on their visit
will be crucial to helping solve crimes in Mexico.
[Torres] We can say their mission is to find
more than 82,000 cases of missing persons in Mexico.
[Elkins] I think the biggest thing that the facility has done for investigators
is exposing investigators to that environment and helping us to see it in real-time.
Allows us to deal with the challenges that we face every day.
[Leslie] And yes, there's rotting flesh, dead bodies, and bones
but the forensic anthropologists who work here on a daily basis
want people to understand this isn't a scary movie set.
[Davis] The Body Farm is not a place of sensationalism.
We don't place our donors out for, you know, grotesque displays.
We have the utmost respect for our donors.
[Leslie] While what happens behind these gates is kept private
the team hopes the power of their research
will impact those beyond the gates for years to come.
[Steadman] So that they can see that the facility is not just this big black scary box
but something that they can feel a part of.
They can understand how this research helps people.
That brings a sense of community and pride to what we do.
[Leslie] In Knoxville, I'm Leslie Ackerson.
[John] And as those scientists explained
work at The Body Farm may sound like a crime TV show.
Tomorrow, we'll explain the difference between pop culture
and the true nature of what those scientists do.
[Robin] And you can watch part one of our series
and read more about The Body Farm right now online at WBIR.com.