Fly Colonies Help Calculate Time of Death of Car Trunk Cadavers

Using pigs as human proxies, forensic entomologists reveal how bodies in vehicles decompose differently from those dumped outside.

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ABOVE: Researchers who loaded car trunks with pig carcasses and set the vehicles on fire still found abundant entomological evidence that could help estimate when the body was placed there.
© GAIL ANDERSON

The six cadavers all wore the same clothes: red t-shirts, plaid boxers, and cargo shorts. They’d been shot in the head and then stuffed into the trunks of old, beat-up cars or deposited in densely shaded spots of forest in Maple Ridge, British Columbia. All died on July 24, 2007. Graduate student Stacey Malainey of Simon Fraser University checked on the six pigs, which served as proxies for human homicide victims, twice a week from the day they were killed, for nearly a month.

When it comes to murder, cadavers are most commonly found dumped in the bushes or the forest. “But there are a remarkable number that are concealed, and particularly concealed in vehicles—in old, junker vehicles,” ...

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Meet the Author

  • Ashley Yeager

    Ashley started at The Scientist in 2018. Before joining the staff, she worked as a freelance editor and writer, a writer at the Simons Foundation, and a web producer at Science News, among other positions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Ashley edits the Scientist to Watch and Profile sections of the magazine and writes news, features, and other stories for both online and print.

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