Read Online Body Farm 2 - Flesh And Bone by Jefferson Bass - Free Book Online
Authors: Jefferson Bass
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murder trial—the longest and costliest in Tennessee history—ended in a mistrial, but Zoo Man had been sentenced to sixty-six years in prison for a series of vicious rapes, so the streets of Knoxville were safe once more. Safer, anyhow.
Hunters had stumbled upon the first of the four bodies in the woods; a grid search by police and my anthropology students yielded the remaining three. The photos from the case showed the victims in various stages of decomposition, ranging from fresh (one body was only a few days old) to almost fully skeletonized, and the contrasts—plus the notoriety of the case—always sparked keen interest among students. But over breakfast, I’d decided to scrap today’s lesson plan.
I had slept badly and awakened tired and frustrated. Jess’s Chattanooga cross-dresser case was nagging at me—the police didn’t seem to be making any headway, from what Jess had told me, and I wasn’t sure that our reconstruction of the death scene was likely to give them much more to work with. If they’d been trying to confirm or refute a potential suspect’s alibi, it might help for me to nail down the time since death. But with no suspects anywhere in sight, I couldn’t see that it would jump-start the case for me to say something like “He’d been dead five to six days by the time he was found.”
So I was already cranky when I sat down with my bowl of instant oatmeal. Then, when I opened the Knoxville News Sentinel, one of the stories in the national news section tipped me into full-blown rage. An Associated Press wire story related how the state Board of Education in Kansas—a state where I had once taught, early in my career—had voted to require science teachers to criticize evolutionary theory. In undermining evolution, the board members were indirectly championing “intelligent design,” a sneaky, pseudoscientific term for creationism: the theory that life is too complex to have evolved without the guiding hand of a whip-smart Creator. In adopting the new policy, the Board of Education ignored the advice of their own science committee, as well as the pleas of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association. They also ignored the accumulated evidence of a century and a half of painstaking scientific research.
I fumed as I drove to campus and gathered my materials for class. I fumed as I made my way down the stairs and out of the stadium; I fumed as I ascended the sidewalk to McClung Museum, which housed the lecture hall where the class met; I was still fuming as I strode into the auditorium, which was filled to capacity.
“Good morning,” I said. “I have bad news. I’m postponing the lecture about the Zoo Man case.” Groans and good-natured boos erupted around the auditorium. “I’ll show those slides a week from now. Today, we’re going to talk instead about unintelligent design.”
A hand shot up in the third row. The young man spoke without waiting to be acknowledged. “Excuse me, Dr. Brockton,” he said with an air of proud helpfulness, “don’t you mean intelligent design?”
“No,” I said, “I mean unintelligent design. Dumb design.” Someone giggled briefly. “People who don’t believe in evolution are always talking about the brilliant design of the human body,” I continued, “about what a cosmic genius the designer had to have been. Well, today we’re going to talk about a few design features you and I have that would suggest some inefficiency, some inattention to detail, or some downright shoddy work in our design.” I scanned the room; clearly I had their full attention.
“Let’s start with teeth. Show me your teeth.” I opened my mouth as wide as it would go, retracted my lips, wiggled my mandible back and forth, and tilted my head in all directions to flash my not-so-pearly whites. Some of the students rolled their eyes, appalled at the silliness, but most of them mimicked what I was doing, if a bit less comically.
Hunters had stumbled upon the first of the four bodies in the woods; a grid search by police and my anthropology students yielded the remaining three. The photos from the case showed the victims in various stages of decomposition, ranging from fresh (one body was only a few days old) to almost fully skeletonized, and the contrasts—plus the notoriety of the case—always sparked keen interest among students. But over breakfast, I’d decided to scrap today’s lesson plan.
I had slept badly and awakened tired and frustrated. Jess’s Chattanooga cross-dresser case was nagging at me—the police didn’t seem to be making any headway, from what Jess had told me, and I wasn’t sure that our reconstruction of the death scene was likely to give them much more to work with. If they’d been trying to confirm or refute a potential suspect’s alibi, it might help for me to nail down the time since death. But with no suspects anywhere in sight, I couldn’t see that it would jump-start the case for me to say something like “He’d been dead five to six days by the time he was found.”
So I was already cranky when I sat down with my bowl of instant oatmeal. Then, when I opened the Knoxville News Sentinel, one of the stories in the national news section tipped me into full-blown rage. An Associated Press wire story related how the state Board of Education in Kansas—a state where I had once taught, early in my career—had voted to require science teachers to criticize evolutionary theory. In undermining evolution, the board members were indirectly championing “intelligent design,” a sneaky, pseudoscientific term for creationism: the theory that life is too complex to have evolved without the guiding hand of a whip-smart Creator. In adopting the new policy, the Board of Education ignored the advice of their own science committee, as well as the pleas of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Teachers Association. They also ignored the accumulated evidence of a century and a half of painstaking scientific research.
I fumed as I drove to campus and gathered my materials for class. I fumed as I made my way down the stairs and out of the stadium; I fumed as I ascended the sidewalk to McClung Museum, which housed the lecture hall where the class met; I was still fuming as I strode into the auditorium, which was filled to capacity.
“Good morning,” I said. “I have bad news. I’m postponing the lecture about the Zoo Man case.” Groans and good-natured boos erupted around the auditorium. “I’ll show those slides a week from now. Today, we’re going to talk instead about unintelligent design.”
A hand shot up in the third row. The young man spoke without waiting to be acknowledged. “Excuse me, Dr. Brockton,” he said with an air of proud helpfulness, “don’t you mean intelligent design?”
“No,” I said, “I mean unintelligent design. Dumb design.” Someone giggled briefly. “People who don’t believe in evolution are always talking about the brilliant design of the human body,” I continued, “about what a cosmic genius the designer had to have been. Well, today we’re going to talk about a few design features you and I have that would suggest some inefficiency, some inattention to detail, or some downright shoddy work in our design.” I scanned the room; clearly I had their full attention.
“Let’s start with teeth. Show me your teeth.” I opened my mouth as wide as it would go, retracted my lips, wiggled my mandible back and forth, and tilted my head in all directions to flash my not-so-pearly whites. Some of the students rolled their eyes, appalled at the silliness, but most of them mimicked what I was doing, if a bit less comically.
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