Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales

If your into forensic science and all the gory creepy details ( like me) this book is for you. Easy read yet scientifically complex. Would definitely recommend! I look forward to reading mor from Dr. Bass

Dr. Bass has created a very interesting and directly written book in Death's Acre. Written in an unconventional format this book tells the history of the Body Farm, contemporary forensic anthropology, and Dr. Bass himself. Interspersed in the historical chronologies are specific forensic cases relating to the events (conception of the Body Farm, etc.) or research they spawned (larval life cycles, etc.). The cases themselves are very compelling stories, but the wonder is that they all relate to events of modern forensic innovation and discovery. Dr. Bass was not the first Forensic Anthropologist, but between his research and his patronage, he has been a leading passenger and teacher in the modern age of discovery.

Loved this book. Dr. Bass tells the story of the Body Farm. It's funny and gruesome and keeps your attention riveted from the first page to the last. It is a must read for any mystery fan because that's how it reads.

This book was astounding! This digs into all the gorey details involved in forensics and gives a background into how they were developed.It covers many different types of cases & is written with absolute perfection. This book is not for the squeemish.

I thoroughly enjoy the Jefferson Bass "Body Farm" books and reading this non-fiction book about Bill Bass' life and research was a wonderful complement to those books. I will be reading "Beyond the Body Farm" next and and awaiting the next Jefferson Bass installment due out next month.

I thought it was a very interesting book about the stories he told about the way he helped solve murder cases with forensic anthropology. He told also of his life as professors at different universities. He told of his life and love ones.

This book is excellent for students who are interested in applying their practical knowledge of Human or Animal Anatomy & Physiology. I read this book in two sittings, found the information fascinating and the writing amusing. I would absolutely love to take a class from this professor!

My daughter and 2 of her friends needed this book for a Senior class. I was able to find the book at the store and it was mailed out within a day and I receive within a week. My daughter was extremely pleased.

The book itself is well written - starts off a little slow but I was interested enough in the topic to keep reading.

My main review though was based on the fact that I left the book on the seat of my car on a warm day (not even a hot day...) and the glue loosened up and a bunch of pages fell out. I've never had that happen with a book before! Very disappointed in the quality of the product but very satisfied with the content.

I do not question this Author's intelligence or scientific knowledge. I do however, find this author's racial biases at times to be a little more than I can handle. Had he just stayed with pure scientific explanations regarding skeletal differences among the three main classifications: caucasiod, negroid and mongloid this book would have been rated by me as 6******'s However, when one is subjected to hear that the reason there are no black olympic swimmers is because their skulls are a tad thicker than a white person's I get more than annoyed and irritated.
I would think the Editor should have been a little more diligent and deleted the more obvious comments.

In all honesty, this book labours under a pretty distinct false pretence. Well, an implied one. From the blurb and the cover, you may infer this to be a book about the Anthropology Research Facility (or, to give it its more colourful soubriquet, the body farm) but it isn't really. The implied impression is misleading. Instead, it is really a biography of Dr Bill Bass who is, as the author info puts it, a "colossus of forensic anthropology". Among other topics, it charts his career in forensics, from when he first began excavating Arikara graves in South Dakota, to the present day. He presents us with some of his most striking cases, with several chapters almost turning into short forensic detective stories.
As background along the way, we are also treated to a brief history of forensic anthropology. We see the development of the science, and how crucial techniques investigators now use in their work first came into being. The "body farm", of course, does feature, sometimes very heavily, but it is not really the focus of the book. Still, readers who pick this up solely for a book about the farm shouldn't be disappointed; we still discover plenty about it and its history, still get an insight into its workings, the methods of those who work there to investigate the processes at work on the body after death, and still get plenty of anecdotes about how the work at the body farm has helped in many forensic cases. There's a wealth of information, but there is a lot more about other general matters.
"Death's Acre" is possibly the perfect book for anyone who is marginally interested in forensics. It doesn't glorify it by any means (anyway, is it possible to truly glorify decaying flesh?) or remove any of the unpleasantness, but it does present it in a riveting light. It treats its subject with respect, and goes into a detail that is fascinating but never brutal or exploitive.
It is also a strangely warm book. There's a strong humanity which comes through from Dr Bass himself. He both loves his subject and hates that it is necessary. It is his personality which softens this book, gives it its compassion and humour and removes some of the harsh edge. Some may not welcome that, but I did. It may cover a sometimes unpleasant topic, but it is strangely comforting.
Something else that makes this such an interesting and unthreatening read is the language. Techniques are explained well (even if the writing does feed off a truly American adulation of acronyms) and the science comes to life.
There are a couple of downsides, though. At times, the descriptive writing is rather awkwardly melodramatic. Phrases are thrown in to add drama and instead had me rolling my eyes. "Dr Snow and I were located in Lexington, just thirty miles from the scene of that early-morning truck collision. Although I didn't know it at the time, I was about to collide head-on with my future," for example. This sort of overblown language just didn't sit right. For the most part, though, is well-told and entertaining to read, and I admit that I did think a one or two of the descriptions were rather inspired, as in the case of "a rattlesnake with a neck as thick as a grave-digger's wrist".
I must also admit that by the finish the constant flow of unidentified bodies was growing tiresome. There are a quite of few of these sorts of cases covered in detail, and I got a little bored of our team of intrepid investigators receiving phone calls and tramping out to scenes, then having to undergo the arduous task of identifying skeletons again and again. It was interesting the first couple of times, but by the end I felt so acquainted with the process that I was keen to have a bash myself and get it over with. ("Ah, yes. The pubic symphysis has clearly ossified. From this I can conclude that our victim was...")
Overall, though, this is warm, entertaining and informative trawl through the history and techniques of forensic anthropology, Dr Bill Bass's life, and the body farm. For those interested in the subject (and I imagine many who read crime fiction are) then this comes highly recommended.

As someone who has had a lifelong fascination with death, decomposition, murder, funerary and burial practices, and all manner of morbid stuff, I was eager to read "Death's Acre." I had read a little about the Body Farm previously, so I couldn't wait to get the whole story from the man who started it all, Bill Bass.

I expected the book to focus very narrowly on the Body Farm itself, but that isn't the case. The reader does get information about Bass's background and how he got into anthropology -- and then forensics -- in the first place. This moves into logical background about Bass's initial work with corpses and the eventual founding of the Body Farm. I thought it was interesting that the Farm got started not only as a much-needed research facility for learning about an uncharted area of science, but it also seemed to have been started because Bass was running out of place to store messy dead bodies (a broom closet at the university and even the trunk of his beloved Mustang proved to be not the best places after all!).

The book then gets into some of the difficulties the Farm has had -- protests about its location, protests about the use of unclaimed cadavers (particularly those of U.S. veterans) and some of the projects it has hosted (including an adipocere formation experiment and an experiment suggested by crime author Patricia Cornwell).

But most of what comprises this book are stories about Bass's career -- his failures and successes. The failures (most notably the Shy case) point up the need for a facility like the Body Farm, and the successes point to the value of the data gathered at the site. All the workers at the Body Farm -- living and dead -- are doing a great deal to aid forensic science. In the future, justice for murder victims will be served more swiftly and accurately because of the work done at the Body Farm.

Avid readers of true crime will enjoy the specialized "professional" view of cases that may already be familiar to them. I was familiar with the Madison Rutherford and Perry/Rubinstein cases, but getting the technical details from Bass (shaped for maximum readability by his capable co-author Jon Jefferson) gave the stories a new dimension. Especially fascinating was the description of the study Bass's student made of the effects of differents types of saws upon bone, which helped lead to a conviction in the death of Leslie Mahaffey, one of the victims of the diabolical Paul Bernardo, the male half of the Canadian "Barbie and Ken" husband-and-wife murder team. There's also an inside look at the infamous Tri-State Crematory case from 2002.

There's a lot of eye-popping detail in this book, some of it horrifying, some of it poignant, some of it -- dare I say -- hilarious. See if you can keep yourself from laughing when you find out why Bass had to buy his first wife two new kitchen stoves, or why he had to buy his third wife a new blender.

Even when the tone of the book becomes humorous, Bass is always professional and respectful. Bass sees himself as a scientist, first and foremost, and his ultimate goal is to use his science to bring criminals to justice. He's humble, big-hearted, and always willing to learn from anybody -- be it a colleague, one of his own students, or the voiceless dead who speak to him with their inert, shattered bones.

This is a wonderful and fascinating book for anyone interested in forensic analysis of human remains. It tells the history of the "body farm", the research facility where human corpses are put out to decompose. The book describes the research conducted at the body farm and some of the most interesting cases that the first author, Dr. Bill Bass who created and runs the body farm, has been involved with. The book is also a sort of professional, and personal, autobiography of Dr. Bass. He comes across as a very caring, charming, humerous and compassionate man. He doesn't hesitate to tell stories on himself, like the time he underestimated the time of death of a body by over 110 years! Oops! I read the book in a day and felt like Bass was sitting in my living room telling me the story personally.
This book is written for the proverbial intelligent layperson. Readers who would like to read a more detailed scientific description of the type of research done at the body farm will like Dawnie Wolfe Steadman's "Hard Evidence: Case Studies in Forensic Anthropology" (2003, Prentice Hall) which includes several papers by body farm scientists.

lol - I have heard "The Body Farm" referred to this way as well.

This is a combination of autobiography and the story of a unique research facility. After mistaking a Civil War veteran's skeleton for that of a recent murder victim, Dr. Bass realized more research needed to be done, and that led to the Body Farm.

I especially enjoyed the story about his excavation of a Native American cemetery before it was flooded by a reservoir (and his sadness at the discovery that most of the skeletons were those of small children) and the one about his student who already knew how to identify the race of a skeleton by looking at, of all things, the knees.

Saddest of all was this formerly devout man's loss of faith following the deaths of two wives within a few short years.

This book is not for the weak of stomach but will fascinate many.

I'm not a phenomenal writer, so please forgive me...

Dr. Bass is an incredible scientist who had a groundbreaking idea - LITERALLY! The Anthropology Research Facility, or Body Farm, is something that people either love or hate. However, no matter your personal, moral or ethical opinion, it must be recognized that the Body Farm has met and far exceeded any expectations, and solved more mysteries than ever expected.

Dr. Bass is a phenomenal storyteller with over 40 years of fascinating stories to tell. Forensics has long been a personal passion for me. I had no doubt that this book would serve me many short nights, as I would be unable to put it down. However, the true test of how good a book this is was to give it to my mother, who is not as excited by macabre murder mysteries as myself. Needless to say, she is now cursing me for giving her a book that she stays up all night to read!!!

Buy this book; you will enjoy it immensely - especially if you enjoy a good murder mystery. If nothing else, you will learn things that you never thought of, that will give you a whole new perspective on the secrets of the dead.

Granted, This book is not strictly about "The Body Farm", but it explains why it was developed. Stemming from what Dr. Bass admits to being a very embarrassing incident, where he speculated on what he believed to be a recently interred homicide victim was in fact a distinguished Civil War hero that had been buried for over 100 years. The knowledge in the field of what has come to be termed "Forensic Anthropology" was extremely limited at the time, simply because no one had actually studied in a scientific manner, what happens to a human corpse when we let mother nature take its course. Dr Bass and a number of his other doctoral students set out embarking on a path which had yet to be traveled. This book details that path. In a relaxed and entertaining manner, he takes us by the hand and points out, "look how far we have come." Using a simple approach, like friends sitting around the coffee table sharing stories, he points out the mistakes he has made over the years, and how he learned from those mistakes to now being a recognized and court certified expert in the field. He shares with the reader, those cases which turn out to be both the foundation for the development of The Body Farm and those, which after its inception, highlight the importance and significance of the study which has been accomplished there.

I agree with some of the other reviewers that this is more of a biographical account than a true in depth analysis of the inner workings of The Body Farm, but that only adds to its charm.

I really enjoyed learning about the Body Farm and how it came to be. I have read Patricia Cornwell's book The Body Farm and so learning the lengths she went to for her research for a death scene in the book was great and encouraging to hear that she really cared if her books are realistic. Also learning where the techniques that are taken for granted today came from, who thought them up, and the experiments done to create these techniques. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the behind the scenes, real life aspect of shows like CSI and Criminal Minds.

Being a huge fan of Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta series, I am always interested in the world of forensic medicine. The "Body Farm" in Knoxville has always intrigued me, although I would never have the nerve to go there. Dr. Bass has written a very interesting book here, answering a lot of questions I have had. It was both interesting and informative. It held my attention until the very end.

I am a historian, a public health researcher, and a fan of all things science. So this book was like candy for me. I also first heard about the "body farm" reading the book "Stiff". A similar facility also showed up on an episode of CSI. This book gives a fascinating insight into the history of forensic anthropology. The stories that Dr. Bass tells of some of the projects undertaken by his students and colleagues are just as fascinating as those he undertakes himself. Kudos to Dr. Bass for sharing the spotlight with others.

As others have said, this is not a textbook. And it treats the body farm as the central facility in the UT team's research into forensic anthropology. But the book is the story of Dr. Bass's seminal role in the development of the field. It does a marvelous job of describing the ways that the forensic scientists interact with police investigators, medical examiners, politicians, the public and, certainly not least, the media.

In short, it is people who take center stage in this book. Dr. Bass makes sure the humanity of murder victims is never lost nor is the humanity of the scientists, detectives, reporters and others in Dr. Bass's extensive cast of characters.

“Death’s Acre” is not what it claims to be: “Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales.”
It’s Bill Bass’s bloated memoir, brimming with useless information, bogging down readers and serving no purpose.
It’s also Bill Bass’s chance to stand up and accuse men and women, not convicted in a court of law, of being murderers. More on that later.
Bass writes about all sorts of things, including a few of his cases and cases of his colleagues. He writes a little about the “body farm” and its genesis, but, not that much.
He complains about journalists, the scoundrels, and then bemoans when newspapers (written by journalists) didn’t cover a murder, disappearance or found body he deemed newsworthy. A little bit of cake-and-eat-it-too going on.
As much as Bass might bemoan journalists, he could have done with a journalistic editor. He jumps around, across, over, under and through time without much, if any, concrete groundings, concrete dates, concrete years to orient the reader. There is no timeline and the memoir is not ordered chronologically.
Result: Confusing and bloated. Too much useless fluff opinion. Bass tries to be a philosopher, to make great, profound points at the end of his chapters. Really, life is short and brutish and no amount of sugared words will mask that fact.

Guilty until proven innocent
As a journalist, on the cops and courts beat, I deal with this topic on a (literally) daily basis. I err on the side of writing about all the felony arrests in my county. I also try to make sure to write about the end of the case: a guilty plea, a dismissal, a not-guilty verdict, etc.
Bill Bass feels no need to throw allegedlys into his writing. Or, really, any indication that the people whom he believes to be guilty aren’t. They’re guilty, come hell or high water! And as a forensic pathologist, often writing about cases he was not even a part of, he knows best. Trust Bill, when he says someone is a murderer. It doesn’t ruin lives or reputations or anything.
Take the case of the murdered 18-year-old Lisa Ranker. Bass’ protégé, Bill Rodriguez, was working on the case and detectives thought they had their suspect based on circumstantial evidence, hearsay and a polygraph test.
The District Attorney didn’t want to prosecute.
That’s not good enough for Bill Bass. Boyfriend Bernie Woody and Woody’s friend Danny Heath are guilty. And that’s just a fact.
“With no cause of death and nothing but circumstantial evidence to suggest that Lisa might have been murdered, though, the district attorney decided not to file criminal charges against either Bernie Woody or Danny Heath.”
Bass is on a first-name basis with “Danny,” whom he has accused of murdering or helping to murder Ranker. I mention his casual use of Heath’s last name because it marks a lack of respect and civility, especially for a man one openly and profusely accuses of murder in a mainstream publication.
So, Rodriguez (referred to, very poorly in style terms in this book, as Bill, despite the author’s own first name) finds Ranker’s bones show evidence of stab wounds. Her death gets re-classified as a homicide.
“Sadly, Lisa’s killer remains at large. Despite the skeletal proof Bill (Rodriguez) found showing that Lisa has been murdered, and despite the linger questions surrounding Bernie Woody and Danny Heath, the Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney remains unwilling to prosecute the case.”

Woah there! Billy proved the woman had been stabbed, probably to death! Except there’s no evidence of who did it. Bass doesn’t care. Hang ‘em high! He says. Let God adjust the scales, right? Burn ‘em!
“Anthropologists and insects can reveal the truth about a crime, but they can’t force the wheels of bureaucracy to turn, they can’t guarantee that justice will be done. All they can do is serve as a voice for the victims, and hope that voice is heard.”’

Let’s be clear. A district attorney refusing to charge and attempt to prosecute a murder case for which he has no evidence is not a wheels of bureaucracy issue. It’s a: preventing other victims, falsely accused by anthropologists who are only out for blood, from being turned into victims issue.
(That quote was also one of Bass’s faux-philosophical chapter endings.)
And really, he’s giving voice to the dead victims, I guess, in hopes of making new, living ones. Kudos, Dr. Bill Bass. Kudos. Grade A life-ruining right there. Even as a journalist, I couldn’t have done a better job myself. And I’m accused of doing such on a monthly basis.

Conclusion
Mildly entertaining and bloated as the bodies he inspected, Bill Bass makes allegations of murder against unconvicted men and otherwise wastes time in this mislabeled memoir.

Death's Acre is an excellent read for those interested in learning more about the field of forensic anthropology without digging very deep into the technical aspects of it. As suggested on the cover, the number of people interested in this field is exploding due to shows such as CSI. It is essentially a series of anecdotes that chronicals the career of the author, who was involved in much of the research that has allowed forensic scientists to accurately interpred crime scenes to a much greater extent than we have been able to at any time in the past. He goes into some detailed information, but explains essential terms and concepts along the way, so that even if you are not an osteology buff, you know what ostology is.

If you are looking for an in-depth guide, a comprehensive reference, a textbook, or anything of that nature, this book is not for you. Although Dr. Bass does explain what he's talking about along the way, he generally only gives you tidbits about his process that are relavent to the case being discussed. It is written so that you get a general overview of the processes of thinking involved in solving a case, but not a step by step guide that would help you do develop a full understanding.

Some of the reviews on the the store.com state that the book gives "gross" accounts of cases that Dr. Bass has worked on. It should be taken as a given that as a reader of a book on forensic science, there will be some graphic descriptions of postmortem proccesses. Although any discussion of this nature will make many uncomfortable, the author treats his subjects (deceased human remains) with the respect that they deserve, and does not go beyond the realm of necessity in his descriptions.

As a final word, although the subject of this book is rather morbid, Dr. Bass presents his stories with a certain humor that is respectful yet helps us keep in our minds that although forensic science is about death, it's goal is to help the living as well as to acheive justice for the dead. Throughout the book, there is a sense of direction that keeps the curiosity piqued, making the reader want to know whats on the next page.

I would highly reccomend this book to those who know a little about forensics and would like to know more without having to shell out the money at your local university. For those who are looking for a technical manual and in depth research, I would suggest that you look elsewhere.

The history of the "Body Farm". A forensic laboratory that studies human decomposition in various locations and under various conditions. A fascinating look at the events that led up to the creation of the Body Farm. Learn how Patricia Cornwell was instrumental in making that existence public with her Book "The Body Farm"! Remarkable amounts of what we now know about how the human body decomposes have come from this small plot of land. A fascinating read, if maybe not for the faint of heart.

I absolutely enjoyed reading about Bill Bass and the numerous forensic anthropology cases he has been involved with in his long and successful career. He is a kind, generous, and honorable man. He has given so much to so many and keeps on giving I am sure. I envy those lucky students who have been blessed to be under his tutelage.

Jon Jefferson has done a wonderful piece of work here. This book is very well written. It is very educational while also highly entertaining.

Thank you both for sharing such awesome and important information with us.

In this book Bass explains the body farm and quite openly and graphic. If you're going to write about this topic don't hold back or censor. This is very interesting science indeed. A science that we unfortunately require to learn how to identify killers. Bass takes you through the farm and describes different studies being done with, well, dead people. Tests that will give time of death of bodies days old, months and years in different environments. It is graffic and it is interesting.

I enjoy Bass telling stories of true crimes he has been involved with. Also in this book he tells of the true story of the crematorium that made National news sometime ago. Of how loved ones sent their deceased to the hands of this crematorium only to find later that the bodies were never cremated but stored, stacked in sheds, strewn about the grounds. This is just one of the stories he tells.

The farm, however is the main subject of the book. Bodies left to decompose in many different manners to help solve murders.

An absolutely fascinating read. I plan on reading it a second time with highlighter and post-it-notes at hand. This book will definitely become part of my personal reference library.
I also intend to add their other non-fiction title, Beyond The Body Farm, to my reading list and will definitely be checking out the fiction titles these two men have written under the name Jefferson Bass.