Los Angeles County Coroner
Forensic Anthropology in Los
Angeles County, California
1998-2003
Elizabeth Miller, Ph.D.
Consulting Anthropologist
Los Angeles County Department of Coroner
and
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
California State University, Los Angeles
Forensic Anthropology is…
• The application of anthropological
techniques to modern human remains for
law enforcement.
• In general, the forensic anthropologist
provides a basic biological profile to aid in
identification of the decedent.
• Your textbook uss the definition of “skeletal
remains resulting from unexplained deaths”.
Why would this be incorrect?
The “ten” questions (I’ve added to the original ten
codified by Snow (1982). My additions are in red).
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Is it bone?
Is it human?
Is it of forensic value?
What bones are
present?
What is the MNI?
What is the sex?
What is the age?
What is the ancestry?
What is the height?
• Are there any
anatomical anomalies,
pathologies, etc.?
• Are there any
indicators of behavior?
• What is the PMI?
• Evidence for cause of
death?
• Evidence for manner of
death?
Five Main Objectives
• Ancestry, age, sex, and height
• Trauma information to determine cause and
manner
• Postmortem interval
• Locating and recovering buried or surface
remains
• Positive identification
History
• Thomas Dwight (1843-1911)
– “Father of Forensic Anthropology in the United
States”
– Wrote articles and essays and lectured on
human skeletal identification
– Researched determination of height, sex,
stature, age at death
Formative Period
• Early 1800s to 1938
• Parkman murder of 1849
– Oliver Wendell Holmes I and Jeffries Wyman
• Leutgert case of 1897
– George Dorsey
• Harris Wilder, Bert Wentworth, Paul
Stevenson, Ales Hrdlicka, Earnest Hooton,
T. Wingate Todd, Robert Terry
Consolidation Period
• 1939-1971
• Began with publication of Guide to the Identification
of Human Skeletal Material by Krogman
– Written for the FBI
• WWII dead were badly decomposed, but needed to
be identified, so CILHI was established
• Korean War dead, new CIL in Japan, several
studies and publications
• Research in depth on military dead
Modern Period
• 1972 to present
• Establishment of the Physical Anthropology
Section of the American Academy of
Forensic Sciences in 1972
• American Board of Forensic Anthropology
created in 1977
• Forensic Anthropology Data Bank at UT
Knoxville
Data Gathering Methods
• Anthroposcopy = Visual inspection of the
human body
• Osteometry = measurement of human bone
• Chemical methods
• Histology = study of the microstructure of
bone and teeth
• Decision table helps researchers judge the relative
importance of information
• Range chart uses multiple ranges of estimates so a
central tendency can be determined
• Indexes use numerical expressions of shape to
compare between groups
• Discriminant functions calculate a numerical
expression of shape
• Regression uses one value to determine another
Forensic Anthropology in LA
• Six basic types of cases on which I work
–
–
–
–
–
–
Human vs. Non-human identification
“Wet” Cases
Decedent Searches
Skeletal Remains/Surface Field Recovery
Buried Body Recovery
Burned Body Recovery
For The Other Types of Cases
–
–
–
–
Decedent Searches
Skeletal Remains/Surface Field Recovery
Buried Body Recovery
Burned Body Recovery
– There is SORT, the Special Operations
Response Team
The Special Operations Response Team
• SORT founded in 2001
– SORT grew out of the former Los
Angeles County Coroner Disaster
Response Team (DRT), which was
started in 1996
• DRT covered only mass fatalities
• All members of DRT were also members of
the federal Disaster Mortuary Operational
Response Team (DMORT)
• Because of the large number of “special”
cases the DRT was expanded into the
present SORT
SORT
Craig Harvey
Chief of Operations
Juan Jimenez
Asst. Chief of Operations
Erik Arbuthnot
SORT Commander
Investigators
Dietz, Elias,
Machian, Kato, Kades
and Corral
Photographer
Grijalva, Fernandez
Forensic Attendants
Maruffo
Pena
Anthropologists
Miller
Buffington
Criminalists
Schuchardt,
Fritz, Sandberg
SORT
• Mass Fatality
Incidents
• Multiple Decedent
Assistance
• Special Decedent
Recovery (includes
burned bodies)
• Buried Body
Recovery
• Decedent Searches
• Public Relations
Events
Investigations
• Traditionally one Coroner Field Investigator was
assigned per call regardless of the type of case or
number of fatalities involved.
• The Investigator on cases involving specialized
resources was forced to rely on other agencies’
personnel, equipment, and resources, and
therefore often lost control of the crime scene and
lost decision making power as the other agencies
moved in to assist in the processing of the scene.
• SORT provides all necessary equipment and
personnel to the Investigator.
Criminalistics
• SORT provides skilled manual labor
available 24 hours a day to assist the
Criminalist, with team members able to
recognize items of potential evidential value
and thereby prevent accidental
contamination of a scene by support staff.
• In addition, the pre-organized SORT allows
for efficiency in processing a scene.
Pathology
• From the pathologist's perspective, the
importance of a team such as SORT is
twofold:
– The team will effectively document the recovery
and the scene
– The pathologist knows the team understands
his/her requirements and preferences and will
maximize the evidence collected to be used in
his/her efforts
Anthropology
• The main concern of the Archaeologist in
the field is total recovery of the decedent,
no matter how scattered, total recovery of
artifacts associated with the decedent, and
total recovery of associated evidence.
• SORT allows the Archaeologist more
flexibility in applying archaeological
methods and techniques to the scene.
• The Anthropologist requires remains as complete
as possible to construct a biological profile and aid
in positive identification of the decedent.
• Knowing that a specially-trained team is performing
the recovery allows these consultants to
concentrate on their jobs, not on what everyone
else is doing.
• The trust engendered allows a recovery to proceed
at a fast pace without the consultants constantly
having to check the efforts of other personnel.
Problem Cases Prior to SORT
• Buried body recovery, decedent searches,
and recovery under special circumstances
were especially difficult prior to SORT.
• Without the proper personnel or equipment,
ready on short notice, personnel present at
scene must take on tasks for which they
may not have proper training, or for which
they are unprepared.
Outside Agencies
• Even after the formation of SORT, but prior
to wide publication of it’s existence, outside
agencies often assumed and/or maintained
control of scenes in which a body was
found.
– Such circumstances made complete recovery
and identification of decedents more difficult for
Coroner personnel.