New body farm in Virginia could help solve crimes all over the country

This article is part of “Solutionaries,” our continuing commitment to solutions journalism, highlighting the creative people in communities working to make the world a better place, one solution at a time. Find out what you can do to help and subscribe to our Solutionaries channel on youtube.

Donating your body to science could help solve crimes here in Virginia and all over the country.

There are only eight body farms in the country and the newest one is in northern Virginia.

“It’s an incredibly personal and awesome decision when somebody thinks that upon their death, they want to contribute their body to science. I mean, it’s the ultimate gift,” said Mary Ellen O’Toole, the Forensic Science Program Director at George Mason University. “Once the body will come out here, we will study every aspect of human decomposition.”

The former FBI profiler says this research will help find bodies, solve crimes, and help investigators in the mid-Atlantic region who run into issues when they work homicide cases.

“We have our law enforcement partners that tell us, ‘Hey, when we go out to a scene, we’re having problems with this’ or ‘We’re having problems with this issue.’ So that really helps us to refine how we want to research out here at the body farm. We use those kinds of examples to define the research and I think that’s incredible because we’re not doing this esoteric kind of stuff just because it’s interesting. We want it to be useful,” said O’Toole.

“There’ll be a homicide, and they’ll move the body. So now we want to know, was there a body here or not? So we have to look at the chemistry that’s still remaining either in the soil or in the in the air around that area,” said Brian Eckenrode, who also worked for the FBI.

He now uses his chemistry background as a professor at GMU. They’re studying how to better find a body that might be buried with other things like trash or chemicals to throw off investigators and dogs. It’s just one of the many research projects going on at the body farm in Manassas.

By working with the seven other body farms across the country, forensic science could make major strides.

“It’s like a puzzle in a lot of ways,” said Eckenrode, who added some of the chemistry is there but not all of it yet. “We’re looking for that common set of chemicals that you would say that is human, independent of temperature, humidity, soil type, and a variety of other factors.”

He compared it to an explosive.

“We know the chemistry of explosives. We can determine and train our canines; we can train our instrumentation to just look for that chemistry. What we’re doing now, it’s broader because our bodies are very complex. So we decompose into several 100 compounds. We know that and so we want to tune that down. And I think by now 20 years ago, if we knew what we did today, we will probably have a solution.”

Eckenrode encourages people to think about donating their bodies to science.

“That would be really helpful for us. I’ve given my life to science, I plan on giving my body to science when I pass,” said Eckenrode.

GMU can get donor bodies from all over the Commonwealth through the Virginia State Anatomical Program. It’s the “only program in Virginia authorized to receive donations of human bodies for scientific study. The primary mission of VSAP is to educate health professionals by providing human donors for the teaching of anatomy and surgery and medical research to the State’s medical schools, colleges, universities, and research facilities.”

The bodies are tested for diseases and there is a process that has to be followed.

When you donate your body to science, it means they can do the research, to prove the science, that solves the cases and trains the next generation.

“I think the most prominent aspect of all of this is to be able to do a much better job of identifying and locating human remains in order to make sure that the person responsible for the homicide is identified, apprehended, and prosecuted,” said O’Toole. “What these people have done when they contribute their body to science will live forever.”

GMU says the research at the body farm will help smaller agencies in Roanoke.

“This is the kind of research that will improve these kinds of cases I think all over Virginia, and ultimately, hopefully all over the country,” said O’Toole.

GMU is still waiting for its first donor body to start some of the research projects, but other projects are going on right now without donor bodies.

You can decide to donate your body to science before you pass, or your loved ones can do it after you die. For information on the Virginia State Anatomical Program, visit this link.

GMU says another limitation to research is money. They encourage you to think about donating to the forensic research program and body farm if you are interested in helping train the next generation and find scientific breakthroughs.

10 News is taking you inside the new science research of solving crimes all week.

• How bees can help investigators find a body

• 3D technology can take a judge or jury to a crime scene as if you were there

• Old technology, used in new ways to help find things buried underground

Join us at 7 p.m. on 10 News for a different story every night – showing how forensic science is evolving to catch more criminals and get justice for families.

This article is part of “Solutionaries,” our continuing commitment to solutions journalism, highlighting the creative people in communities working to make the world a better place, one solution at a time. Find out what you can do to help and subscribe to our Solutionaries channel on youtube.