Body Farms: tending corpses, not crops
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Jon Jefferson (left) and Dr. Bill Blass (right) write using the pen name Jefferson Bass. The pair has written about ten books, both fiction and non-fiction, about body farms-the forensic anthropological facilities where research about how human bodies decompose is done. Dr. Bass, a retired forensic anthropologist, created the first body farm at the University of Tennessee in 1972. There are now eight such facilities in the U.S.
My wife and I live in the Grande Villa in Chinook and there is a tradition there among residents to put their unwanted items "on the bench." Each floor has a bench by the elevator, the place to leave items no longer wanted or to pick up something that catches the eye. I call the benches "the Mall of America."
Recently I found a paperback titled "Cut to the Bone" by Jefferson Bass. I'd never heard of the author but from the title assumed it was a book about crime. Turns out the book was authored by a writing team-Jon Jefferson, a journalist, and Dr. Bill Bass, a retired forensic anthropologist...
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