Hi. and welcome back to the Bone Club. It's
I, Ashley, and we finally have back with us Stephanie
and Jenna back from their ailments of last time.
And this time we also have a very, very, very
special guest with us, Dr. Tracy Rogers from
the University of Toronto, who happens to be
my supervisor as well. She was Jenna's supervisor.
And so we're... pleased to have her on the Bone
Club with us this week. So she's going to be
talking to us about the complexities of various
different types of cases, which I think is going
to be of great interest to a lot of folks because
what we find in forensic anthropology in particular
is every case is different. No one case is the
same. And so what we learn from one case, we
can move to another. But every single case is
unique. And so with that, I'd like to go ahead
and get started. Dr. Rogers, would you like to
say hello to everybody? Hello, everyone. It's
nice to be here. Hi, Tracy. It's so good to see
you. So one of the questions we like to ask first
of our guests is, what got you interested in
forensic anthropology? How did you find yourself
here in the field? Well, you'll have to remember
that when I started, forensic anthropology wasn't
a thing. That was well before Bones and all of
the big forensic science programs that came out.
So I didn't really know about it when I went
to university. I went with the idea that I wanted
to do something that would be able to help. So
I was thinking of the typical things, you know,
doctor, lawyer, psychiatrist, something along
those lines. But I found anthropology in first
year and I just loved everything about it. Even
the cultural, the biological, the archaeology,
I loved it all. And by second year, I kind of
narrowed it to archaeology and biological anthropology.
And by third year, I finally heard about forensic
anthropology and saw how I could help people
in real time by doing something amazing. looking
at the human skeleton and understanding who these
people were and what had happened to them. So
that was sort of the way I eventually found forensic
anthropology. And I usually tell people the story
about how I was really seriously debating between
archaeology and forensic anthropology. And I
went on an archaeological dig with a graduate
student to assist. And I spent the entire day
screening and we found absolutely nothing. And
that was it. I was done. It was forensic anthropology
all the way. Even though I do love to do scene
work and out there screening and all the same
things, but forensic anthropology, we definitely
have, I think, a greater return on our search
efforts and in archaeology where they often spend
a long time searching and don't find anything.
And you have trained a number of anthropologists,
particularly in Canada. And I count myself among
the many lucky who you've trained in this field.
So I've learned a lot in how to go about working
in the field and working in the lab from you.
So that I do thank you for. And we welcome you
to the Bone Club here because we wanted to talk
to you about the complexities of various different
scenes. Massive scenes, small scenes. And the
reason why is because you have worked some of
those really large, complex scenes. And one of
them that particularly Americans don't really
know about is that of Robert Pickton, where you
were one of the lead anthropologists. And for
those that don't know, Robert Pickton was a pig
farmer and a serial killer. who operated in Port
Coquitlam in British Columbia. I have a hard
time pronouncing that town's name. It's about
17 miles or 27 kilometers east of Vancouver.
In February of 2002, police executed a search
warrant for illegal firearms. And while they
were there, they had found some personal items
that had belonged to some missing women and applied
for a second search warrant. This ultimately
kicked off what would be an extensive excavation
of the Picton property, and ultimately Robert
Picton was convicted of second -degree murder
for the murder of six women, and he was accused
of first -degree murder for an additional 21
other women. He also supposedly confessed. to
an undercover RCMP officer disguised as a cellmate
that he had murdered up to 49 other women. And
I should mention that he had a particular type
of woman that he went after, and those were indigenous
women, sex workers, transient women. So he had
a particular type of women that he went after,
marginalized women in the community. So I guess
one of the first questions I wanted to ask you
is, when you have a site that is as massive and
complex as the Picton site was, what are some
of the ways that you first get organized to tackle
such a challenge? Well, in order to give the
listeners a bit of a sense of what you mean by
large site, this was the main property was about
16 acres that we decided had to be searched completely
all the way down to sterile soil. Because although
when the police went on with the second search
warrant and were able to look into the property.
Initially, they discovered that this individual
had been, Robert Picton had been dismembering
the women and not all of the bodies or body pieces
were visible, you know, in their initial walkthrough.
So clearly he had done something with them and
it wasn't sure, they weren't sure exactly what.
We've determined that in order to search thoroughly,
the entire property had to be excavated down
to sterile. And in some cases, this was maybe
six feet deep that we had to go down. And in
other places, it was over 30 feet that we had
to go down before we were able to determine that
this was sterile ground and that nothing was
buried below. And in a number of places, we were
actually in the water table before we could clear
the area. So that just gives you an idea of the
size and in some ways, the depth that we had
to. go down into that site. There were also buildings
on the property and cars and there were cars
buried in the property and there were, it was
a farm, so there were pigs buried on the property
and cows buried on the property. So there was
a lot to actually have to work with there. And
then when some of the remains became When we
were able to finally locate some of the remains,
we noticed there was a pattern between that case
and a case that we had seen a few years previously.
And that linked us to a second site. And that
was another, I think, approximately 14 acres
that we had to search. That one, the individual
that was located on the surface. So we felt that
we probably didn't have to do such a... an in
-depth excavation as at the original site it
seemed that perhaps this was a site that he had
maybe been transporting the bodies across or
parts of bodies across and so we did we did a
very thorough walk -through search we raked through
we cut down all the long grasses on that site
there was a slough like a standing water we had
the divers in for that and then in the in the
main part of the meadow we actually did peel
back some of the turf in a sort of checkerboard
pattern to try and excavate below in various
areas in order to determine whether there was
likely any disturbances that we needed to consider
and and make sure that he wasn't actually trying
to bury bodies on that property and we were able
to determine that it was not that likely the
kind of time frame was out of that we were getting
artifacts from were outside of the scope of what
we think he was operating in that area so we
did spend a couple weeks there but the main concentration
was on the main property and we spent a year
and a half there so that gives you some idea
of just how big and how intense this site was
and in order to be able to get the entire property
searched down to sterile we had to incorporate
heavy machinery. So there was a lot of logistics
that went into the planning for this site. And,
you know, every scene has its own logistics.
But when you're working with a smaller scene,
you have your sort of usual set of tools you
take. You have your usual support team that comes
with you. You have your very typical... coroners
that you work with for the region or the police
agencies you work for for the region but this
investigation when you are dealing with these
larger types of scenes this one was a joint effort
between the RCMP and the Vancouver police so
we already had two police agencies involved and
then of course the coroner and the office of
the chief coroner and so one of the challenges
is that the logistics just become that more complex
right you have more agencies involved you have
more more people and more more expectations about
the way things get done so one of the big things
is just working out the logistics of who reports
to who how should the process work what is the
protocol for doing everything because not everybody
knows right not everybody who's helping on a
more complex scene like this or who's involved
has ever even been on a straightforward forensic
anthropological case before so there's a lot
of information sharing that has to go on and
planning and logistics that have to go on that
are at a much larger scale than a typical scene
we also have to think about the equipment so
you know in a normal scene you have probably
a basic kit and all the equipment, screens, et
cetera, that you take with you. But on a property
the size of what we were dealing with with Picton,
we really had to think on a much larger scale.
So that involved dump trucks, excavators, conveyor
belts, screening, you know, automatic or machine
screening. It involved this level of machinery,
et cetera, and everything to support it, all
the expert drivers and the safety people and
all of those things that go along with making
sure that this will work well. So on one hand,
it's the same types of issues. It's making sure
you have the logistics sorted, making sure you
have the personnel, making sure you have the
equipment and the resources, but it's at a much
potentially more complex scale. I say for all
the American listeners, because I know I didn't
necessarily know this. RCMP is the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police. So just like their police. I
know I was I like looked at my phone. I was like,
I should probably figure out what RCMP means.
So for our listeners, that's what that that is.
You'll probably hear that quite a bit today.
When thinking about like training, because you
were saying that like many people who are. assisting
with these larger scale excavations might not
have ever worked specifically forensic anthropology
scene but maybe even a forensic scene at all
like some excavators they might know how to drive
the machinery but have never been on a forensic
site when training them how to do it in the way
that you need it done i guess what types of like
precursor powerpoint presentation i don't know
something uh is given to them in order to understand
like how to work with human remains and potentially
like what human remains look like so like when
they're going and doing their backhoe and they
see something in their like i don't know what
the little arm thing's called for uh an excavator
but is it up to you as the anthropologist or
the anthropology team to be like stop we need
to like before you just toss this dirt into a
pile we need to like hold or are they trained
to kind of keep an eye on certain things like
that I guess it's like what kind of training
goes into those non -forensic team members so
that's a really good question because training
and training your eye or what to look for is
really quite critical. So one of the things that
we did with all of the excavators was to really
find out what they were capable of, because you
have no idea. I mean, they've worked on, you
know, you try to find the experts that have done
a lot of work with, you know, with excavation
machinery. And when we talked with them, we found
out that they You know, they can detect minor
differences in the ground texture. They are really
good at seeing differences in soil color, etc.
So they were really already good at detecting
and seeing differences. And just to give you
an idea of the process, what would happen is
we, just like a regular scene, set out a grid,
but these ones were much bigger. They were 20
by... 20 meters so it was quite a large grid
system and we would do one unit at a time so
we would have an excavator in the unit and we
had an anthropology technician monitoring so
they were looking in as the excavator was also
looking at what they were excavating so if either
one of them saw something then they would pause
and then I would go in and check out what it
was they saw so we had that system in place then
anything that got all the soil that got excavated
went into a dump truck and then the dump truck
would be put through the soil the dump truck
went through a machine called the Grizzly, which
was a sorting machine. And then that was set
at three different sizes. And the three different
sizes of materials that it was sorting would
go out on conveyor belts. And the anthropology
technicians were actually along the conveyor
belts. And their job was to, keeping their hands
in all that soil that was coming by on the conveyor,
pick out anything that wasn't soil. So they were
picking out, you know, needles and garbage and
anything animal bone of course bone of any kind
anything that was just not part of the soil they
would pull that out and we worked in one hour
blocks so that Everything got timed. We knew
exactly what unit we were working in. We knew
who was working on the conveyors at that time.
And so anything that got taken out got put into
their, they had buckets and they had tables behind
them where all of the things that they located
in that hour would be put. And then the next
team would come in at the end of the hour and
the team that was just leaving would make sure
they had. all the information about what unit
it was, what the timeframe was, and then they
would go up and further complete all the paperwork
to go with it. So we had that chain of custody
going the whole way. And of course, our technicians
didn't always know kind of the full scope of
what forensic anthropology is all about and how
you maintain chain of custody and all of that.
So they all had to be trained in the process
of chain of custody. We had... I think at one
point and for quite a while, we had over 100
anthropology technicians working on that site
because we had a whole team on for an hour and
then they would have to go off and another team
would be on for the next hour and then they'd
alternate all day long. And the reason for that
is because when all of the debris and potentially
human remains were going past on the conveyor,
if... If anybody sort of didn't see something
and a piece of someone went off the conveyor,
that was the last time that anybody would have
eyes on that, you know, that possible person
there. And so we wanted people to be standing
at that conveyor with fresh eyes. We wanted to
make sure that we didn't miss anything. So we
actually had, I think it was, depending on which
conveyor they were on, we had um something like
six on one side and six on the other side so
anything that got missed by the first two would
be caught by the second two or the third two
right as it went down the line and then at the
very end the conveyor kind of went up and it
dropped off the end and then we had two more
people watching as things came off the end and
so they could hopefully see anything that we
kind of lit up as it fell down and then they
would pull that out with rakes and so all of
the things that they pulled out and they documented
came to me if it was potentially organic or bone
and I examined all of that as well as going to
the unit that was being excavated if somebody
saw something in the moment right so it took
a little while to work out that protocol in order
to get that protocol figured out and the way
to build in those redundancies and make sure
that we weren't overlooking anything. A couple
of the police officers who were in charge of
the logistics of the setup, they went down to
the site of the Twin Towers because this project
began in February of 2002 and the Twin Towers
came down in 2001. So the search at the Twin
Towers was really getting... going and had really
begun to be established by the time the Picton
site came along. And we actually had a good look
at how that was being dealt with to search through
debris for people in such a large, large scale.
And so we adapted that, they adapted that methodology,
and then everybody had to be trained in it, including
these hundred techs, the anthro techs, because
You know, Canada isn't as big as the U .S. and
the number of forensic anthropologists in Canada
is very small. And at that time it was even smaller.
And so the students available and the recently
graduated people available to assist with this
process was. quite a small number. So we had
to end up hiring also some archaeologists, bioarchaeologists,
etc. And most of them had no experience at all
with forensic anthro. So I did have to do a few
presentations to explain kind of what we're looking
for and how we're looking for it and why we're
looking for it and how we need to behave. And
then, of course, the RCMP, Royal Canadian Mounted
Police, they had a couple of presentations themselves
talking more about the investigation the importance
of chain of custody and you know they came at
it from that perspective and of course there
was safety and basically everybody was presenting
to everybody else so that we all hopefully had
a really good solid understanding of what needed
to be done And I also did a bit of training on
what to be looking for. So I brought in some
examples, showed the team what they were looking
for. And then we did a bit of training where
we told them we're going to do this. So that
wasn't like complete out of the blue. But we
took a couple of animal bones and put it through
the system so that we could see if we could actually
find it. Like, did the system work? Because it
seemed like a great idea. But until... You try
it, you don't actually know if it's going to
work, right? Do we have enough redundancy built
in? Are we separating things small enough? All
of those things. And thankfully, we did find
the ones that we put in as our tasks, so we knew
it was working well. And of course, it didn't
start off in this perfect way right at the very
beginning. We had to figure out a lot of details,
like what do you put over people so they're not
standing in the rain as they're trying to do
this job, right? How high do you, some of the
things are kind of funny that you don't probably
think about. We're working on conveyor belts.
We had somebody who was less than five feet tall
and we had another person who was over six feet.
So what height do you set the conveyor belt at
just to make it ergonomically comfortable for
the whole team, right? And so we had a couple
of people who had to be on step stools and eventually,
and we had ergonomic pads and we had like, there
was a lot of work that went into how to make
this a. functional and safe place for the people
to work um one of the other sorry for sites like
this I know at least on the American side a lot
of times uh or at least the ones that I have
been a part of the police are technically in
charge of all of it and you're just there as
like a consult of like this is what I would do
if I was in charge Do you find on the Canadian
side it runs kind of the same way or do they
hand over a little more power because it is your
specialty? Yeah, I guess that's my question.
That's another good question. It depends a little
bit on who you're working with and probably the
same in the U .S. if they've ever worked with
you before. So if they know you and they know
what you're capable of, they're much more likely
to sort of say, OK, this is what we need. And
now you tell us what you need and you kind of
work together and make it happen. When we started
at Picton, the person who introduced me to the
lead and, you know, the I'd say lead site investigators.
He knew me. And so he introduced me and said,
she's, you know, she's going to be really helpful,
et cetera. And I explained to them what I can
do. The coroner, one of the coroners that was
working at the time had a lot of experience working
with recovery human remains and I knew him. So
there was an introduction there, but it wasn't
quite the same as having worked with people.
in the past and they know what you can do and
all of that sort of thing so at first there was
a little bit more you know they're in charge
this is the way they want it but then when I
would make suggestions and explain to them why
things really would be better if it went in this
direction or that direction they were really
good about it for the most part I think the team
worked really well together there were a couple
things that you know people have to learn the
hard way which is funny after the fact but in
the moment is a little frustrating so One of
the things, as an example, one of the things
that we encountered at the Picton site was because
it was a farm and they buried a lot of animals
on the farm. There were areas where there would
be two or three, say, cows buried together. And
because of the water table, you'd get massive
amounts of adipocere. So think of a person, think
of a cow, think of how much adipocere that will
be. Our lovely logistics people thought that
it would be a good idea to just put all this
soil and the cow bones and adipocere through
the same process as everything else. And I suggested
that wasn't a good idea because adipocere you
really don't want going through your screens
and all of that. Sometimes people have to try
and see what happens. And so I think it took
about a day and a half or two days to clean out
the screen and the conveyors so that things would
work properly and we could move forward. So that
led to a whole new protocol specific to these
kinds of adipocere areas. And it actually led
to a really nice protocol, a really good protocol,
I think, where the whole team would go. in all
the personal protective equipment and they had
rakes and the excavator would excavate out what
appeared to be the extent after I had gone into
the pit and said I don't see any human bone here
we'll take it out and then they laid it down
on an area that had already been searched and
the team went through with rakes and they pulled
everything out and so they pulled out all the
bone they pulled out everything and then I was
able to go through and just examine everything
individually and so that worked out really well
and of course all that adipocere could then go
back into a pit because we did not need to keep
it and that worked much better but after those
kinds of experiences where people learn the hard
way they do tend to listen to you a little bit
sooner in the process. Speaking of learning the
hard way, and you've mentioned it a couple times
of trying to adapt. One of the things that I've
learned working on a lot of scenes is you develop
a plan. done your research before you show up,
you've developed a plan, you know exactly what
you're going to do, and you show up, and five
minutes after you've shown up, it's obsolete
almost, because the situation on the scene has
changed to some degree that you were not expecting,
or information that... You should have been given,
was not given, or was incorrect. Anything of
that nature. So what challenges do you find,
both with a case similar to Picton, whether it
be as large and as massive as Picton was, or
other sort of cases like that, or even just a
small, straightforward case? What challenges
do you find and how do you overcome them? When
it comes to that, all right, I have my plan.
I show up and, well, this isn't what I planned
on. Well, going into a scene, I like to think
of the plan as more of a living document, an
adaptable kind of plan. You go in, hopefully.
covering as many of the basis as possible with
the idea of how you're going to approach it.
And I usually write that all down. So I have
it documented how we're going to start anyways,
or what the general plan is. And then when you
get that new information or things are changing,
I find that it is easier to adapt than to have
to start. You know, like if you came to the scene
and you didn't even have a starting point, right?
It's much easier, it's much quicker to adapt
an existing plan than to kind of arrive cold
and have to develop it in the moment. It's also
really, I find, helpful from the perspective
of documentation and if you have to go to court
to explain what you did. Because if you've got
the plan and you have a reason for changing that
plan and you document your reason, then... All
that entire process is there. And when you go
to court, you can explain it. It makes sense.
You don't get a lot of pushback from anyone about
why you did this or why you did that because
you can explain everything that you did. And
yes, of course, there's many different ways to
process a scene. I do it great, but somebody
else might not do it exactly the same way. And
it will still be great because as long as you're
doing it in a really systematic way and you're
ideally. So ensuring that you're going from the
area with the least amount of potential evidence
so that you can approach it carefully and collect
everything as you're going. Then regardless of
exactly how you do it, you should at the end
both come out with very good results. So I find
the ability to explain the plan afterwards and
make sure it's... it is systematic and make sure
it is thorough it works if you have a plan but
if you kind of come to the scene and you go oh
this looks like this is happening and this looks
like that i have i think i need to try this and
then if that's not working to try that it becomes
really piecemeal and bit like you know shot in
the dark so that's definitely not a way to approach
any scene and the more complex the scene the
greater the chances are you're going to overlook
something um So when you do show up, though,
you have that initial information and that scene
information, you've developed a plan, you've
surveyed, and you've started to encounter some
of the initial unknowns. Overall, what are some
of the major challenges that... Coming into place.
When you're processing. Different types of saints.
When you're processing something. As large as.
As Picton. Or as complex as Picton. Or as something.
As house fires. As fire saints. What are some
of those challenges. That you. come across that
you have to figure out how to deal with when
you've made that initial assessment? I would
say, you know, because there are so many scenes
and they can be complex in different ways, you
really do have to be adaptable and be able to
think on your feet on the best way to approach
things. I find one of the big challenges, though,
regardless of the scene type, is the expectation
that things should happen fast, fast, fast, right?
Because especially if it's a case that's evolving
in the moment. So I've had some cases where they're
trying to find the suspect as we're processing
the scene and things are happening so fast new
information is coming in it's changing things
and it's really interesting and exciting to see
how this case is evolving but at the same time
people are expecting that you're going to give
them this answer now because they need it now
because they need to follow up on this lead or
that lead or should be they doing this or should
they be doing that right and so Other investigators
can put a lot of pressure on saying we need this
and we need it fast. But of course, forensic
anthropologists out there will know that you
don't want to approach a scene fast because the
faster you go and the more you're rushing trying
to get something, there's a greater chance you're
actually going to miss something. And that's
going to be a huge problem. So trying to slow
people down to do it right. in the moment when
there's a lot of pressure to go fast is a big
challenge and to convey the importance of doing
it at the correct speed. So I like to say we
don't do it fast, we do it efficiently, right?
We want to do it as quickly as we can, but doing
it properly, right? So if we can't do it properly,
we need to slow it down to make sure we are doing
it properly. So that's always a huge challenge,
just trying to manage, in a way, manage the expectations
of the investigators on how fast or how slow
or why you're here or why you're there. But if
they are briefed at the beginning, there's a
much greater chance that they're going to accept
it. They're still going to probably say, do you
have it yet? But they're going to be a little
more trusting that you're doing it at the pace
it needs to be done. Jenna? All right. So on
a scene of that scale, if it's moving at a pace
of about a year and a half, that is not quick.
And so at that point, do you get to make the
call about when to close a scene like that? Do
you get told to close a scene like that? And
if you are deciding when to close that scene,
is it a psychological challenge to know and be
able to tell yourself like I? I think I found
everything I could find or I've literally found
everything that is there. Like, when do you call
it? So in the Pickton case, it's interesting
because there were three scenes associated with
that case. And one where the farmhouse was and
where Robert Pickton's trailer was, the main
property. The decision was made almost from the
beginning that the site would have to be searched
in its entirety. And it was going to be searched
down to sterile. And that was the end. So that
was nice because that decision was made and I
agreed with it. And, you know, it would have
been the decision I would have made anyways.
But the, you know, the scale and the time and
the resources and the cost and all of that sort
of thing is something that is. Well above what
I would normally work with, you know, costing
in the millions of dollars to do this one scene.
So I was happy that those decisions were made
at a much, much higher level. When we considered,
you know, what we actually knew, what was likely,
how could we be sure that all of these women
were searched for properly, etc. And that decision
was made that we need to make sure that we can
go back to those families and say we. fully search
this scene and they're not there if we didn't
find them then we're quite confident they're
not there now in the second scene because it
wasn't his property it was just an area where
you know people walk through and we think that
he probably had walked through at some point
the approach was a little bit different and we
did a thorough search including you know raking
and there was there were some little slopes and
there were tall meadow grasses which we cut down
and we hand searched and all of these things
so we did all of these things very thorough as
well but there was a little bit more reliance
on me to tell them what I thought needed to be
done and when I was satisfied that we had done
everything we needed to do to be certain that
there were not more remains left at that site.
And at that one, because we didn't completely
excavate everything down to the ground, you know,
down to the groundwater, there is that potential
that maybe we've overlooked something. But at
the same time, we did such a thorough ground
search that I feel pretty confident and the the
areas that we did excavate we did in a really
systematic way and so I was pretty confident
that we ruled out those possibilities but as
you know you can never be 100 certain unless
like in the first scene you can actually excavate
it right down to groundwater so do you find that
when making those types of decisions it has gotten
easier throughout your career of like, you know,
you've seen more cases, maybe less so for the
Picton case, but like your smaller, more quote
unquote traditional type of scenes where you're
like, okay, I've seen 10 of these beforehand.
I know pretty much exactly what we're doing and
you feel more confident or do you still feel
similar to your first scenes where you're like,
No, it's still a hard decision to say, no, we
have to call it quits on we think we've done
enough. Well, I would say in some ways it's gotten
a little easier because you do see the patterns,
right? So we always or I always consider, I guess
the ones that tend to be the most challenging
are the ones that are scattered. Because obviously,
if you have a grave and you're able to excavate
fully, great, you're happy. But the scattered
cases are the tricky ones because we get coyotes,
we get bears. They will take body parts really
far away, like miles away. So in some ways, you
have to acknowledge the reality that you just
may not be able to recover the entire person.
Given that that is a reality of these kinds of
scenes, then we try to work from, you know, what
are the scatter patterns normally associated
with coyotes? What are the patterns normally
associated with bears? Which one are we dealing
with here? Where can we expect to look? How far
can we take that? And in Canada and in Ontario
in particular, we have a nice... sort of overlapping
system. So we have the forensic anthropologist
that has that skill set and will make decisions
about, okay, this is what the expectations are.
This is how we're going to search. But we do
that also in conjunction with the search and
rescue teams. And these are typically, there's
an Ontario one in Ontario. So there's usually
a provincial kind of search and rescue, and there
might be more local ones for particular municipalities.
And we work with them. They will go in a much
bigger area that we tend to search because they
do, you know, the hasty searches. So they're
going through and they're doing, they've got
their GPS and they're tracking their complete
lines, etc. So we've got them going through.
And if they see anything at all that... That
helps kind of set some boundaries and, you know,
when are we seeing things and how long has it
been since we've seen things? Whereas the forensic
anthropologist is focusing a bit more on the
main concentration and working out from there
typically. And then we also have canine units
that go through. So they help us when we reach
the end of where we can say, okay, the pattern
is fading here. I'm not sure where it's going.
And we'll also look at the distance from one.
piece to the next piece like how far have we
actually had to go before we found this next
piece and that helps kind of figure out you know
how much further might we have to go just to
find the next piece and so the dogs are really
good that way too because they can go through
they can go through quickly and they can help
maybe find one or two isolated pieces so and
then of course there's the coroner who in Canada
has the legal responsibility for the remains
so we work with them and so all of these people
the lead of the search and rescue the lead of
the canine unit me and the coroner would all
have a conversation about do we think that we
have reached the extent that is um let's say
feasible because you can always keep going but
is it even feasible are we likely to find any
more of this person And of course, we look at
what actually are we missing as well, because
if we're missing key pieces of a person, then
ideally we want to continue looking until we
find them. And if you find most of the body,
but not the skull, that's a bit of an odd one.
And we know that coyotes will roll them and move
them. So yeah, so we kind of track those patterns
and try to see if we can locate that missing
skull. Of course, it's really important to do
that kind of recovery. If it's a few smaller
pieces, then that might mean a bit less of a,
not a concern because we're concerned to recover
the entire person and that's always the goal,
but it's just probably less likely that we might
find some of those smaller pieces if we reach
this really large scatter, which we do quite
frequently. Along those lines, not just with,
feasibility and efficiency. Thinking, and I know
you didn't work this case, but thinking to Winnipeg,
where they recently recovered a couple of murdered
indigenous women from a landfill outside of Winnipeg.
Is there ever And thankfully, they did go in
and finally and do an excavation and finally
recovered them. But is there ever a situation
where you would say. That's unsafe or the collective
team you're working with would say, you know,
we we know the individual is there. But we just
we can't go in because of safety concerns. We
don't want to put ourselves we don't want to
put our team. in that line? Does safety come
in in some way? Yeah, safety is a really important
factor. It's always a primary consideration,
but there are so many ways to mitigate. So even
with the landfill case in Manitoba, I never considered
that to be not feasible. That was always a feasible
search, but... Yes, there was asbestos, so you
get an asbestos specialist in to deal with that
piece of that problem. There are issues with
the height and the stability of all of the debris
in the landfill, but the people who run the landfill
deal with that all the time. So there are ways
to mitigate those issues. And in the Picton case,
for example, when you're starting to get down
to these, 30 feet that your unit's 30 feet deep.
Of course, there's all kinds of issues relating
to the side walls being potentially kind of slumping
in and that sort of thing. So there are other
safety issues that we had to worry about there.
We did have needles found on the property and
even in the soil. So there were puncture proof
gloves. We had full PPE. They had respirators.
There's, you know, so many ways to really mitigate
some of these problems. And even in cases like
where there are bears, that is not a safe place
to be around bears. But, you know, if you have
somebody in there whose job it is to look for
bears and they are there with, you know, a gun
in hand ready to deal with any bears should they
get out of control. And, you know, those types
of things, they can all pretty much. I would
say almost everything. I wouldn't say it would
never happen that you would say you can't do
it. But there's so many ways that you can manage
the safety issues that I would really be reluctant
to ever say no, it's not feasible to search for
your loved one. Because I think there probably
is a way that it could be managed. And just to
push the question. Just a little – that envelope
a little bit farther, that question a little
bit farther. And I know we've seen what happened
in New York with the Twin Towers and how the
New York OCME dealt with that, how you all dealt
with the Picton property, how DC's – or actually
how Virginia's ME's office and others dealt with
the Pentagon. And other different mass casualty
events. But can you envision a situation where
we'd reach or a case would reach critical mass,
say? It's too big. There's just no real way to
get a handle around it. And if not… If there
is, how do you get a handle around it? How do
you address that? Well, I think most cases, I
think there would be always a way to approach
it because everything is a matter of scale, right?
So if you divide it into... smaller sections
and do a section at a time a section at a time
when it becomes I think unmanageable is when
people have these unrealistic expectations like
they're not going to pay more than a x number
of dollars you can't have more than x number
of people they're not going to provide whatever
equipment is necessary right but if you have
that willingness then yes it might take a year
and a half and it may take over 200 people working
six or seven days a week But you can do it, right?
And, you know, yes, a landfill is not the ideal
place to be searching in. But when you organize
it and when you identify the likely areas and
when you divide it up into more manageable protocols
and steps, then it can be done. So I would say
probably most things. I imagine there are...
I mean, there are probably locations where it
would become incredibly difficult, where you
might have to be roped in or, you know, something
along those lines. And that might cause a number
of logistic issues that make it quite difficult
to the point of maybe being impossible. So I
wouldn't entirely rule it out. But I would say
that as long as you had the support necessary
there. their ways of managing very large scenes
i say i know we're kind of coming up on our time
but i have one kind of somewhat broad spectrum
question to kind of go with this is i know a
lot of times at least on the u .s side of things
um we might have more anthropologists than canada
does but we're also pretty spread out like there's
not necessarily like eight anthropologists like
I'm probably in one of the few places where there's
just a horde of us in one area. Usually there's
like one per state or something like that. And
then with that comes often anthropologists get
asked to help out with the scene, but aren't
necessarily paid for their time and expertise
and things like that. Do you find that Canada
is different in that way that they like? I don't
want to say value y 'all more, but like value
the expertise to pay for that type of skill?
Or do you still like, are you predominantly paid
through, say, your university and you volunteer
your time out to do scenes? Because I know a
lot of times that's how it works on the US side.
Yeah, it's a very interesting question because
each jurisdiction seems to do it slightly differently.
But overall, I think in Canada, it runs one of
two ways. They either know what forensic anthropologists
can do and they value us and they want us involved
and we are paid, or they don't know what we do.
You tell them and they're still not sure and
they just decline. altogether so we're hoping
that there are less of those areas and more of
the ones that utilize forensic anthropology on
a regular basis but one of the i guess one of
the ideas in the canadian legal system is that
seems to underlie this process is that experts
are people who do this professionally and a professional
gets paid so you can't be an expert witness and
go to court if you're not being paid as a professional
to do this job right and so if if you volunteer
your time and you had to go to court then you
would be you know a hobbyist or you would be
a civilian person or you would be something other
than a professional and a subject matter expert
so that that helps certainly with the idea of
the need to have your experts paid for the work
that they do Why did I move back to the States?
I'm not saying they always pay us well, but we
do get paid. Well, I want to thank you for joining
us. I do have one last question, though. And
that is, you've worked all different types of
scenes. And I just, is there a type of scene
that you... prefer to work that you it's I don't
want to say it's enjoyable but you you like to
work that that that you yeah that you prefer
to work I actually find all types of scenes really
interesting and I enjoy the say enjoy the challenge
of doing different kinds of scenes so from that
perspective yes I would say enjoy them and every
scene has its Something that's unique about it
that makes it so interesting to be there and
to be part of helping to recover that person
and figure out what happened at that location.
Scenes that are large, like the Picton scene,
it's a really interesting dynamic and it's an
interesting experience. Because you're working
with these same people for a really long time.
So you get to know people in a way that you don't
often on other kinds of cases. There's also something
quite satisfying of going into a case, doing
a nice clean excavation and having everything
kind of done it by the end of the day and be
able to go home and have, you know, enjoyed the
experience of meeting the new people at the new
scene and working with them. So I would say there's,
again, there's something that's interesting.
I like, you know, the big scene searches because
it's... Usually nice to be outside and spend
the day outside, you know, organizing and working
with people to locate someone whose family is
waiting to hear about them. And burials are really
interesting as well because they're usually,
you know, get to put all the skill set together
to do the nice recoveries that you kind of...
learn and do with all the excavation skills and
that sort of thing so fires fires are interesting
in a number of ways and actually I don't mind
doing the fire cases at all but the the thing
that is actually a little bit hard about fire
cases that's different from other cases for me
is that in the other cases a burial or someone
who's you know, died outside and bodies been
scattered, et cetera, or been deposited outside.
You see them the way that somebody left them,
right? Somebody left them in the burial. Somebody
left them out on the, in this property. Somebody
left them in the garbage can, et cetera. And,
you know, that to me, the lack of respect along,
of course. they'd been killed, but obviously
the lack of respect in the way that they've been
treated, that gives me kind of almost an anger
of how they've been left like that as though
they're disposable people. And so I approach
those scenes from that perspective of almost
being, no, I want to recover those people because
they deserve better than how they've been, you
know, treated and how they've been left. But
when I go to a fire scene, you're seeing the
last moments of someone's life, right? And that's
a different feel because this isn't how, you
know, somebody disposed of them, I guess, unless
it's an arson and then it's a bit more of a crossover,
but it's sort of them in those last moments.
And those last moments can be really, really
sad and terrifying when you see. And the cases,
you know, where people are so close to escaping
from the fires are heartbreaking. When they're
at the door, all they needed was less than a
minute more and they would have been out and
alive, right? And those ones are heartbreaking.
So there are some that are emotionally more,
I think, challenging. And of course, ones involving
kids are that much more... challenging especially
since I had my own kids that that changes things
I think sometimes that you feel it more but but
all the scenes to me are really interesting for
their own way there's always some new challenge
right whether it's having to be roped in and
going down a really steep ravine or crawling
underneath the crawl space and you know just
trying to figure out how you're going to get
into some place and out of that place again and
all of these things make it different and interesting
and challenging my problem with fire scenes is
the ones I've always worked with you it's always
negative 19 degrees celsius yeah I'm not made
for for I've 10 years in Ontario I was never
made for Ontario winter yeah the ones where they're
frozen to the ground and you actually have to
heat up the space before you can remove them
from the snow and the ice adds that extra layer
of challenge. And I can imagine that coming from
the South, it's not a pleasant thing to be out
there at minus 20, minus 30. Well, Dr. Rogers,
I want to thank you so much for joining us here
this evening. It's been an absolute pleasure.
And I want to thank all of you for joining us
as well on this episode of The Bone Club. And
we'll be here in a couple weeks with a new episode.
Until then, have a very pleasant week. Have a
very pleasant couple weeks. And we'll see you
in time. Goodbye. Thank you. Hello, friends.
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