“Them Bones”

Years ago I received a call from the city police reporting that a plumber had found numerous skeletal remains underneath a house. It’s not uncommon for someone to find a buried bone in their garden or lying in a vacant lot. It’s so common in fact that in most cases I would simply ask the reporting officer to drop off the bone at the morgue so that it could be ruled out as human. I usually don’t get too excited about the prospect of skeletal remains because well over 90 percent of the time, the bone in question is non-human. Unless there is a human skull, personal effects, or clothing among the remains, I’m not too interested in going out at 3 a.m. to look at chicken bones or beef ribs.

This most recent call had a different dynamic. The officer reported that the plumber had found “dozens‿ of bones in the crawl space underneath the home—some of which appeared to have been cut into smaller pieces. There were no obvious findings to indicate the remains were human, but then again the officer couldn’t tell a whole lot what with the house being in the way.

The officer informed me that he had already called his supervisor and was told that the crime scene detectives weren’t interested in working the scene until the Medical Examiner determined if the bones were human or not. Apparently they were as disinterested in the prospect of looking at animal bones at 10 a.m. as I was at 3 a.m.

Side Note:

Different police departments respond to scenes in different ways. Some agencies work every death as though it’s suspicious by sending scene technicians to document the scene and detectives to interview witnesses and take statements. In most cases, it depends on the size and available resources of the agency. As such, it’s not uncommon for a police department to wait for the initial impression of the Medical Examiner before it commits resources to a scene investigation. I’ve worked many deaths that started off as basic unattended deaths but warranted a more in depth scene investigation by law enforcement based on my initial findings. When that happens, I simply stop my part of the investigation until law enforcement has a chance to respond accordingly.

When I got to the scene, the officer directed me to a screened vent in the foundation at the front of the house. Peering through the screen into the dark underneath the house I could just make out an area of scattered bones with a larger accumulation in the center. Fortunately, the area of accumulation appeared to be a pile of random bones rather than the easily identifiable remains of a vertebrae and ribs.

“I don’t see anything that’s obviously human, but it’s hard to see much of anything under there. Where are the bones the plumber brought out?‿

“He didn’t,‿ the officer responded.

Just my luck. The one time I wished someone had disturbed a scene, and it turns out the plumber noticed the bones and immediately crawled out from under the house before disturbing anything.

As much as I would have liked to have determined the bones to be non-human at that point, the fact of the matter was that I hadn’t seen enough. Judging from the duty belt of the officer and the tool belt of the plumber that stood leaning against his van in the street, there was only one of us that was going to fit under the house.

“Where’s the opening to the crawl space?‿

“In the backyard.‿

“Of course it is,‿ I thought to myself as the officer led me around the house.

After seeing the opening, I returned to my car and retrieved flashlight and a Tyvek suit (the white, paper-like coveralls worn on crime dramas or in microchip factories). Within minutes I was crawling my way to the front of the house—though the more accurate word would be “slithering‿ due the fact there wasn’t room to crawl.

I’ve never considered myself to be claustrophobic, but that doesn’t mean I’m necessarily a fan of willfully threading my body into an area with all the headroom of a coffin. This particular adventure was even more complicated by the presence of pipes and floor joist supports that required me to negotiate a maze of obstructions instead of simply going straight to the front of the house where the bones were located.

Along the way I came across random bones, examining each in turn and placing them into my Tyvek suit to keep my hands free for use. I was happy to see some signs of teeth marks on the bone, but of course that didn’t automatically mean they were non-human. Many of the bones I found in the maze were cut sections of long bones that were much larger in diameter than a section of human long bone would be. Most butcher saws are powered and make a cut that is almost surgical in nature—a nice clean cut with uniform blade marks across a nice even plane. Most hand tool saw marks are more ragged and uneven across a plane. That’s not to say a butcher couldn’t use their saw on a human or a person couldn’t use a powered hand tool on their victim.

As it turned out, the accumulation of bones at the front of the house was more of the same. There were no obvious human bones present anywhere. No skull, no mandible, no vertebrae, and nothing that looked like carpals or tarsals. The closest thing to human bones were the ribs I found, but they were shaped differently than human ribs. None of the bones were fresh. All of them had been under the house long enough to dry out and lose some of their density in the interim. I also dug at the ground a little bit, but all of the bones appeared to have been placed on top of the ground. This point was worth noting because if someone were to have tried to dispose of a body under a house, then chances are they would have buried the body to further limit the possibility of discovery.

As far as I could assume, years ago the house belonged to someone with access to a butcher shop and a dog small enough and determined enough to negotiate the maze I had just crawled through. I didn’t see any reason to call out the crime scene unit. I made my way over to the screened vent and shared my thoughts with the officer, and the homeowner that had joined him. Noticing a small hole in the screen I asked the officer to pass through a plastic bag. When the homeowner went inside to get the bag, the officer asked me why I needed the bag.

“I’m going to pick up all these bones so the poor bastards that replace you and me don’t have to go through this again in 20 years.‿

“Whatever Happened To…�?

My apologies to anyone who may have been expecting, “The Girl of My Dreams—Part III.�? I’m afraid there isn’t one. Part of the reason I ended “Part II�? so abruptly with numerous questions left unanswered was to illustrate the fairly routine lack of closure associated with this job. Additional apologies for the delay in completing this post, as I hadn’t meant to delay the explanation this long.

I’ve long since become accustomed to this particular aspect of the job, so I suppose it affects the people I know even more. For every “remarkable�? or unusual case I work, I may mention the particulars to a few people. If these few people are curious enough, they naturally ask me about the outcome of the case down the road.

I always feel like I’m somehow disappointing friends, family, and police officers when they ask questions like:

“What was the little girl’s cause of death?�?

“Whatever happened to the parents?�?

“Isn’t it a homicide if she died because of neglect?�?

It’s at that point I’m forced to admit that I have no idea what the ultimate outcome was on a case.

Here’s why:

Once I’ve done the scene investigation and prepared the paperwork, my role in the investigation is for the most part completed. Unless the case requires some immediate follow up work at the time of the autopsy, I’m pretty much done with the case as soon as I inform the respective agency as to what our findings were. The dynamics are a little different on a homicide case, requiring more work to collect evidence and more conversations with the respective agency about the particulars of the case.

So beyond the day after the autopsy, there’s a very good chance that I’ll never have any involvement with a particular case again. Many of our cases require further investigation such as toxicology and histology. These additional tests mean that it could be months before the pathologist determines a cause of death. During this span of time, I will likely have brought in several dozen more cases.

When a case is finally closed, it’s basically a clerical matter that is handled in the front office and nothing that I ever see again unless I go and check. Unless I’ve remained in contact with the investigating agency or seen an update on the news, I may never know the final determination on a case.

I’m not sure if I ever knew what the little girl’s cause of death was. I don’t remember her name, but I recall enough of the details that with a little effort I could pull her case and find out. But then I think, in the grand scheme of things, “What difference would that make?�?

Of course, that only explains why I don’t know the cause of death. As for what happened to the parents and whether she died from neglect—I can’t explain those at all. I can only assume that the case workers from child welfare arrived shortly after I left. Whether or not anything positive came from their visit is a separate issue. Neglect isn’t a pathological finding discovered at autopsy and is generally an issue for the judge, jury, and attorneys to sort out. To a certain degree, I’d rather remain blissfully ignorant on both issues.

So how do I answer those questions from friends and family? I typically don’t. I’ll offer something along the lines of, “I forgot all about that one,�? and politely pretend to be as curious as they are as to what the answer might be. Depending on the case, that may or may not be a true statement, but it’s a lot easier that explaining all I’ve written here. I’m pretty sure no one wants to hear the sad truth–that for every case that sticks out in my mind, there are a hundred that I forget completely.