“What the climate can do to the human body can be very perplexing,” said Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former FBI agent, whose specialty involved working on serial killer cases.
O’Toole now heads the George Mason University Forensic Science Program, which includes a facility informally called a “body farm” — one of only 10 in the world.
“We prefer to call them donors, rather than just bodies, because they’ve so graciously contributed their bodies to science,” said professor Georgia Williams, a forensic DNA expert and mentor of a program that hosts guest researchers from other schools.
The outdoor forensic research lab provides hands-on training and research, in the blending of science and the search for justice.