\u201cI\u2019ve pretty much dedicated my life to anthropology,\u201d the professor explained to the South Florida Sun Sentinel after returning from a series of expeditions, including the one in Lake Worth Beach, which she could not discuss in detail due to the active investigation.<\/p>\n
Deputies had \u201cimmediately\u201d notified FGCU after uncovering the bones, Palm Beach County Sheriff\u2019s Office spokeswoman Teri Barbera had said in a news release. Walsh-Haney\u2019s team continued scouring the site for additional remains Tuesday and Wednesday last week. By Thursday, all of the bones had been taken to the medical examiner, Barbera said, though she provided few details as to whom the bones might belong and whether they could help solve any existing cold cases.<\/p>\n
Bones are Walsh-Haney\u2019s bread and butter. She measures, scans, and X-rays skeletal remains to reconstruct who they were in life as well as \u2014 perhaps most critically \u2014 the moments leading up to their death. Officials primarily rely on Walsh-Haney when investigations involve badly decomposed or skeletal remains, services badly needed in the South Florida heat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Florida, the decomposition process happens immediately,\u201d Walsh-Haney said. \u201cWe have elements of remains decomposing in a matter of days, not weeks.\u201d When decomposition is so advanced that medical examiners cannot determine the body\u2019s sex or ancestry, \u201cthey call me in.\u201d<\/p>\n
As soon as she gets the call, Walsh-Haney heads out with her team, composed of staff members, graduate students, and a few \u201cwell-trained\u201d undergraduates. They have their own crime scene truck, so \u201cI can be wheels up with my team in two hours, if they discover there\u2019s a need,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
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Dr. Heather Walsh-Haney at work with students. Photos depict either casts of human remains from museums and medical supply companies or donated from legal next of kin. (Courtesy\/Florida Gulf Coast University)<\/p>\n
Then they set to work, first to recover any additional remains, then to examine them in the medical examiner\u2019s office. Walsh-Haney emphasized that medical examiners don\u2019t require her services, but having an anthropologist on hand can help them answer questions more quickly and with greater depth \u2014\u00a0 such as whether remains belong to a human or an animal, or what skeletal material, like teeth, is most likely to yield DNA, which can later be used for cutting-edge investigative techniques like genetic genealogy.<\/p>\n
Once Walsh-Haney constructs a picture approximating how a person may have looked, law enforcement can use it to query missing persons databases in hopes of identifying them. She also helps law enforcement determine what traumas the person might have suffered and whether those traumas occurred before the time of death, during or after it.<\/p>\n