WEBVTT 00:00:07.559 --> 00:00:43.060 Hi. and welcome back to the Bone Club. It's 00:00:43.060 --> 00:00:46.740 I, Ashley, and we finally have back with us Stephanie 00:00:46.740 --> 00:00:52.200 and Jenna back from their ailments of last time. 00:00:52.380 --> 00:00:54.920 And this time we also have a very, very, very 00:00:54.920 --> 00:00:58.000 special guest with us, Dr. Tracy Rogers from 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:00.539 the University of Toronto, who happens to be 00:01:00.539 --> 00:01:04.620 my supervisor as well. She was Jenna's supervisor. 00:01:05.500 --> 00:01:09.390 And so we're... pleased to have her on the Bone 00:01:09.390 --> 00:01:13.629 Club with us this week. So she's going to be 00:01:13.629 --> 00:01:17.450 talking to us about the complexities of various 00:01:17.450 --> 00:01:20.090 different types of cases, which I think is going 00:01:20.090 --> 00:01:22.790 to be of great interest to a lot of folks because 00:01:22.790 --> 00:01:26.790 what we find in forensic anthropology in particular 00:01:26.790 --> 00:01:31.250 is every case is different. No one case is the 00:01:31.250 --> 00:01:34.790 same. And so what we learn from one case, we 00:01:34.790 --> 00:01:39.230 can move to another. But every single case is 00:01:39.230 --> 00:01:42.549 unique. And so with that, I'd like to go ahead 00:01:42.549 --> 00:01:45.290 and get started. Dr. Rogers, would you like to 00:01:45.290 --> 00:01:48.670 say hello to everybody? Hello, everyone. It's 00:01:48.670 --> 00:01:54.530 nice to be here. Hi, Tracy. It's so good to see 00:01:54.530 --> 00:01:57.989 you. So one of the questions we like to ask first 00:01:57.989 --> 00:02:00.750 of our guests is, what got you interested in 00:02:00.750 --> 00:02:02.810 forensic anthropology? How did you find yourself 00:02:02.810 --> 00:02:07.799 here in the field? Well, you'll have to remember 00:02:07.799 --> 00:02:10.219 that when I started, forensic anthropology wasn't 00:02:10.219 --> 00:02:13.340 a thing. That was well before Bones and all of 00:02:13.340 --> 00:02:16.259 the big forensic science programs that came out. 00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:19.620 So I didn't really know about it when I went 00:02:19.620 --> 00:02:22.340 to university. I went with the idea that I wanted 00:02:22.340 --> 00:02:25.659 to do something that would be able to help. So 00:02:25.659 --> 00:02:27.500 I was thinking of the typical things, you know, 00:02:27.539 --> 00:02:29.819 doctor, lawyer, psychiatrist, something along 00:02:29.819 --> 00:02:33.199 those lines. But I found anthropology in first 00:02:33.199 --> 00:02:36.379 year and I just loved everything about it. Even 00:02:36.379 --> 00:02:39.060 the cultural, the biological, the archaeology, 00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:42.139 I loved it all. And by second year, I kind of 00:02:42.139 --> 00:02:44.580 narrowed it to archaeology and biological anthropology. 00:02:44.879 --> 00:02:47.400 And by third year, I finally heard about forensic 00:02:47.400 --> 00:02:51.139 anthropology and saw how I could help people 00:02:51.139 --> 00:02:55.000 in real time by doing something amazing. looking 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:57.500 at the human skeleton and understanding who these 00:02:57.500 --> 00:02:59.280 people were and what had happened to them. So 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:03.939 that was sort of the way I eventually found forensic 00:03:03.939 --> 00:03:10.719 anthropology. And I usually tell people the story 00:03:10.719 --> 00:03:13.680 about how I was really seriously debating between 00:03:13.680 --> 00:03:16.979 archaeology and forensic anthropology. And I 00:03:16.979 --> 00:03:19.699 went on an archaeological dig with a graduate 00:03:19.699 --> 00:03:22.860 student to assist. And I spent the entire day 00:03:22.860 --> 00:03:25.419 screening and we found absolutely nothing. And 00:03:25.419 --> 00:03:27.500 that was it. I was done. It was forensic anthropology 00:03:27.500 --> 00:03:31.449 all the way. Even though I do love to do scene 00:03:31.449 --> 00:03:34.129 work and out there screening and all the same 00:03:34.129 --> 00:03:37.629 things, but forensic anthropology, we definitely 00:03:37.629 --> 00:03:42.650 have, I think, a greater return on our search 00:03:42.650 --> 00:03:45.729 efforts and in archaeology where they often spend 00:03:45.729 --> 00:03:48.430 a long time searching and don't find anything. 00:03:50.110 --> 00:03:55.409 And you have trained a number of anthropologists, 00:03:55.710 --> 00:04:02.590 particularly in Canada. And I count myself among 00:04:02.590 --> 00:04:07.210 the many lucky who you've trained in this field. 00:04:07.569 --> 00:04:12.349 So I've learned a lot in how to go about working 00:04:12.349 --> 00:04:14.310 in the field and working in the lab from you. 00:04:14.590 --> 00:04:19.930 So that I do thank you for. And we welcome you 00:04:19.930 --> 00:04:23.589 to the Bone Club here because we wanted to talk 00:04:23.589 --> 00:04:26.810 to you about the complexities of various different 00:04:26.810 --> 00:04:30.240 scenes. Massive scenes, small scenes. And the 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:34.439 reason why is because you have worked some of 00:04:34.439 --> 00:04:38.139 those really large, complex scenes. And one of 00:04:38.139 --> 00:04:42.519 them that particularly Americans don't really 00:04:42.519 --> 00:04:46.740 know about is that of Robert Pickton, where you 00:04:46.740 --> 00:04:49.899 were one of the lead anthropologists. And for 00:04:49.899 --> 00:04:52.379 those that don't know, Robert Pickton was a pig 00:04:52.379 --> 00:04:56.360 farmer and a serial killer. who operated in Port 00:04:56.360 --> 00:04:59.339 Coquitlam in British Columbia. I have a hard 00:04:59.339 --> 00:05:02.459 time pronouncing that town's name. It's about 00:05:02.459 --> 00:05:06.060 17 miles or 27 kilometers east of Vancouver. 00:05:06.920 --> 00:05:11.060 In February of 2002, police executed a search 00:05:11.060 --> 00:05:15.079 warrant for illegal firearms. And while they 00:05:15.079 --> 00:05:17.500 were there, they had found some personal items 00:05:17.500 --> 00:05:20.800 that had belonged to some missing women and applied 00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:25.120 for a second search warrant. This ultimately 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:28.819 kicked off what would be an extensive excavation 00:05:28.819 --> 00:05:35.480 of the Picton property, and ultimately Robert 00:05:35.480 --> 00:05:37.620 Picton was convicted of second -degree murder 00:05:37.620 --> 00:05:43.339 for the murder of six women, and he was accused 00:05:43.339 --> 00:05:46.579 of first -degree murder for an additional 21 00:05:46.579 --> 00:05:52.709 other women. He also supposedly confessed. to 00:05:52.709 --> 00:05:56.649 an undercover RCMP officer disguised as a cellmate 00:05:56.649 --> 00:06:01.810 that he had murdered up to 49 other women. And 00:06:01.810 --> 00:06:04.949 I should mention that he had a particular type 00:06:04.949 --> 00:06:09.509 of woman that he went after, and those were indigenous 00:06:09.509 --> 00:06:16.610 women, sex workers, transient women. So he had 00:06:16.610 --> 00:06:18.990 a particular type of women that he went after, 00:06:19.029 --> 00:06:24.449 marginalized women in the community. So I guess 00:06:24.449 --> 00:06:26.670 one of the first questions I wanted to ask you 00:06:26.670 --> 00:06:32.589 is, when you have a site that is as massive and 00:06:32.589 --> 00:06:36.649 complex as the Picton site was, what are some 00:06:36.649 --> 00:06:40.230 of the ways that you first get organized to tackle 00:06:40.230 --> 00:06:46.310 such a challenge? Well, in order to give the 00:06:46.310 --> 00:06:48.870 listeners a bit of a sense of what you mean by 00:06:48.870 --> 00:06:52.810 large site, this was the main property was about 00:06:52.810 --> 00:06:57.889 16 acres that we decided had to be searched completely 00:06:57.889 --> 00:07:01.930 all the way down to sterile soil. Because although 00:07:01.930 --> 00:07:05.870 when the police went on with the second search 00:07:05.870 --> 00:07:08.910 warrant and were able to look into the property. 00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:13.420 Initially, they discovered that this individual 00:07:13.420 --> 00:07:16.300 had been, Robert Picton had been dismembering 00:07:16.300 --> 00:07:20.720 the women and not all of the bodies or body pieces 00:07:20.720 --> 00:07:24.759 were visible, you know, in their initial walkthrough. 00:07:24.920 --> 00:07:28.220 So clearly he had done something with them and 00:07:28.220 --> 00:07:30.180 it wasn't sure, they weren't sure exactly what. 00:07:30.259 --> 00:07:32.920 We've determined that in order to search thoroughly, 00:07:33.160 --> 00:07:35.819 the entire property had to be excavated down 00:07:35.819 --> 00:07:40.189 to sterile. And in some cases, this was maybe 00:07:40.189 --> 00:07:43.310 six feet deep that we had to go down. And in 00:07:43.310 --> 00:07:45.949 other places, it was over 30 feet that we had 00:07:45.949 --> 00:07:48.850 to go down before we were able to determine that 00:07:48.850 --> 00:07:51.009 this was sterile ground and that nothing was 00:07:51.009 --> 00:07:53.410 buried below. And in a number of places, we were 00:07:53.410 --> 00:07:55.689 actually in the water table before we could clear 00:07:55.689 --> 00:07:59.550 the area. So that just gives you an idea of the 00:07:59.550 --> 00:08:04.069 size and in some ways, the depth that we had 00:08:04.069 --> 00:08:07.899 to. go down into that site. There were also buildings 00:08:07.899 --> 00:08:10.980 on the property and cars and there were cars 00:08:10.980 --> 00:08:15.060 buried in the property and there were, it was 00:08:15.060 --> 00:08:18.079 a farm, so there were pigs buried on the property 00:08:18.079 --> 00:08:20.160 and cows buried on the property. So there was 00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:23.379 a lot to actually have to work with there. And 00:08:23.379 --> 00:08:29.449 then when some of the remains became When we 00:08:29.449 --> 00:08:31.290 were able to finally locate some of the remains, 00:08:31.430 --> 00:08:33.830 we noticed there was a pattern between that case 00:08:33.830 --> 00:08:38.230 and a case that we had seen a few years previously. 00:08:38.450 --> 00:08:40.870 And that linked us to a second site. And that 00:08:40.870 --> 00:08:45.090 was another, I think, approximately 14 acres 00:08:45.090 --> 00:08:48.990 that we had to search. That one, the individual 00:08:48.990 --> 00:08:52.669 that was located on the surface. So we felt that 00:08:52.669 --> 00:08:55.549 we probably didn't have to do such a... an in 00:08:55.549 --> 00:08:59.590 -depth excavation as at the original site it 00:08:59.590 --> 00:09:01.889 seemed that perhaps this was a site that he had 00:09:01.889 --> 00:09:05.590 maybe been transporting the bodies across or 00:09:05.590 --> 00:09:09.950 parts of bodies across and so we did we did a 00:09:09.950 --> 00:09:15.759 very thorough walk -through search we raked through 00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:18.980 we cut down all the long grasses on that site 00:09:18.980 --> 00:09:21.919 there was a slough like a standing water we had 00:09:21.919 --> 00:09:26.200 the divers in for that and then in the in the 00:09:26.200 --> 00:09:29.519 main part of the meadow we actually did peel 00:09:29.519 --> 00:09:32.529 back some of the turf in a sort of checkerboard 00:09:32.529 --> 00:09:35.490 pattern to try and excavate below in various 00:09:35.490 --> 00:09:38.370 areas in order to determine whether there was 00:09:38.370 --> 00:09:41.590 likely any disturbances that we needed to consider 00:09:41.590 --> 00:09:44.570 and and make sure that he wasn't actually trying 00:09:44.570 --> 00:09:47.789 to bury bodies on that property and we were able 00:09:47.789 --> 00:09:50.690 to determine that it was not that likely the 00:09:50.690 --> 00:09:53.370 kind of time frame was out of that we were getting 00:09:53.370 --> 00:09:57.350 artifacts from were outside of the scope of what 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:01.500 we think he was operating in that area so we 00:10:01.500 --> 00:10:04.620 did spend a couple weeks there but the main concentration 00:10:04.620 --> 00:10:08.000 was on the main property and we spent a year 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:12.340 and a half there so that gives you some idea 00:10:12.340 --> 00:10:15.960 of just how big and how intense this site was 00:10:15.960 --> 00:10:21.600 and in order to be able to get the entire property 00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:26.049 searched down to sterile we had to incorporate 00:10:26.049 --> 00:10:30.850 heavy machinery. So there was a lot of logistics 00:10:30.850 --> 00:10:35.610 that went into the planning for this site. And, 00:10:35.649 --> 00:10:38.750 you know, every scene has its own logistics. 00:10:38.950 --> 00:10:41.250 But when you're working with a smaller scene, 00:10:41.409 --> 00:10:44.490 you have your sort of usual set of tools you 00:10:44.490 --> 00:10:47.629 take. You have your usual support team that comes 00:10:47.629 --> 00:10:52.509 with you. You have your very typical... coroners 00:10:52.509 --> 00:10:55.149 that you work with for the region or the police 00:10:55.149 --> 00:10:58.129 agencies you work for for the region but this 00:10:58.129 --> 00:11:00.929 investigation when you are dealing with these 00:11:00.929 --> 00:11:03.970 larger types of scenes this one was a joint effort 00:11:03.970 --> 00:11:07.409 between the RCMP and the Vancouver police so 00:11:07.409 --> 00:11:11.669 we already had two police agencies involved and 00:11:11.669 --> 00:11:13.750 then of course the coroner and the office of 00:11:13.750 --> 00:11:17.029 the chief coroner and so one of the challenges 00:11:17.029 --> 00:11:21.460 is that the logistics just become that more complex 00:11:21.460 --> 00:11:24.980 right you have more agencies involved you have 00:11:24.980 --> 00:11:31.960 more more people and more more expectations about 00:11:31.960 --> 00:11:34.580 the way things get done so one of the big things 00:11:34.580 --> 00:11:37.320 is just working out the logistics of who reports 00:11:37.320 --> 00:11:42.940 to who how should the process work what is the 00:11:42.940 --> 00:11:45.720 protocol for doing everything because not everybody 00:11:45.720 --> 00:11:48.580 knows right not everybody who's helping on a 00:11:48.580 --> 00:11:50.620 more complex scene like this or who's involved 00:11:50.620 --> 00:11:54.340 has ever even been on a straightforward forensic 00:11:54.340 --> 00:11:56.620 anthropological case before so there's a lot 00:11:56.620 --> 00:11:59.440 of information sharing that has to go on and 00:11:59.440 --> 00:12:02.480 planning and logistics that have to go on that 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:06.500 are at a much larger scale than a typical scene 00:12:06.500 --> 00:12:12.159 we also have to think about the equipment so 00:12:12.159 --> 00:12:15.539 you know in a normal scene you have probably 00:12:15.539 --> 00:12:18.840 a basic kit and all the equipment, screens, et 00:12:18.840 --> 00:12:21.580 cetera, that you take with you. But on a property 00:12:21.580 --> 00:12:23.779 the size of what we were dealing with with Picton, 00:12:23.919 --> 00:12:27.220 we really had to think on a much larger scale. 00:12:27.340 --> 00:12:32.059 So that involved dump trucks, excavators, conveyor 00:12:32.059 --> 00:12:36.360 belts, screening, you know, automatic or machine 00:12:36.360 --> 00:12:43.279 screening. It involved this level of machinery, 00:12:43.460 --> 00:12:46.200 et cetera, and everything to support it, all 00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:49.820 the expert drivers and the safety people and 00:12:49.820 --> 00:12:51.940 all of those things that go along with making 00:12:51.940 --> 00:12:57.460 sure that this will work well. So on one hand, 00:12:57.460 --> 00:13:00.559 it's the same types of issues. It's making sure 00:13:00.559 --> 00:13:02.799 you have the logistics sorted, making sure you 00:13:02.799 --> 00:13:05.059 have the personnel, making sure you have the 00:13:05.059 --> 00:13:08.039 equipment and the resources, but it's at a much 00:13:08.039 --> 00:13:13.700 potentially more complex scale. I say for all 00:13:13.700 --> 00:13:15.620 the American listeners, because I know I didn't 00:13:15.620 --> 00:13:18.340 necessarily know this. RCMP is the Royal Canadian 00:13:18.340 --> 00:13:23.080 Mounted Police. So just like their police. I 00:13:23.080 --> 00:13:24.840 know I was I like looked at my phone. I was like, 00:13:24.860 --> 00:13:27.159 I should probably figure out what RCMP means. 00:13:27.919 --> 00:13:30.580 So for our listeners, that's what that that is. 00:13:30.799 --> 00:13:32.600 You'll probably hear that quite a bit today. 00:13:33.820 --> 00:13:36.860 When thinking about like training, because you 00:13:36.860 --> 00:13:41.470 were saying that like many people who are. assisting 00:13:41.470 --> 00:13:44.509 with these larger scale excavations might not 00:13:44.509 --> 00:13:46.809 have ever worked specifically forensic anthropology 00:13:46.809 --> 00:13:49.990 scene but maybe even a forensic scene at all 00:13:49.990 --> 00:13:52.950 like some excavators they might know how to drive 00:13:52.950 --> 00:13:55.389 the machinery but have never been on a forensic 00:13:55.389 --> 00:14:00.990 site when training them how to do it in the way 00:14:00.990 --> 00:14:04.289 that you need it done i guess what types of like 00:14:06.560 --> 00:14:08.919 precursor powerpoint presentation i don't know 00:14:08.919 --> 00:14:12.259 something uh is given to them in order to understand 00:14:12.259 --> 00:14:17.200 like how to work with human remains and potentially 00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:19.320 like what human remains look like so like when 00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:21.399 they're going and doing their backhoe and they 00:14:21.399 --> 00:14:24.679 see something in their like i don't know what 00:14:24.679 --> 00:14:27.980 the little arm thing's called for uh an excavator 00:14:27.980 --> 00:14:32.840 but is it up to you as the anthropologist or 00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:35.580 the anthropology team to be like stop we need 00:14:35.580 --> 00:14:37.980 to like before you just toss this dirt into a 00:14:37.980 --> 00:14:40.759 pile we need to like hold or are they trained 00:14:40.759 --> 00:14:42.519 to kind of keep an eye on certain things like 00:14:42.519 --> 00:14:44.220 that I guess it's like what kind of training 00:14:44.220 --> 00:14:49.399 goes into those non -forensic team members so 00:14:49.399 --> 00:14:51.860 that's a really good question because training 00:14:51.860 --> 00:14:54.789 and training your eye or what to look for is 00:14:54.789 --> 00:14:57.429 really quite critical. So one of the things that 00:14:57.429 --> 00:15:00.870 we did with all of the excavators was to really 00:15:00.870 --> 00:15:03.789 find out what they were capable of, because you 00:15:03.789 --> 00:15:06.309 have no idea. I mean, they've worked on, you 00:15:06.309 --> 00:15:09.570 know, you try to find the experts that have done 00:15:09.570 --> 00:15:12.330 a lot of work with, you know, with excavation 00:15:12.330 --> 00:15:17.169 machinery. And when we talked with them, we found 00:15:17.169 --> 00:15:20.299 out that they You know, they can detect minor 00:15:20.299 --> 00:15:23.679 differences in the ground texture. They are really 00:15:23.679 --> 00:15:26.480 good at seeing differences in soil color, etc. 00:15:26.740 --> 00:15:29.500 So they were really already good at detecting 00:15:29.500 --> 00:15:33.820 and seeing differences. And just to give you 00:15:33.820 --> 00:15:36.639 an idea of the process, what would happen is 00:15:36.639 --> 00:15:39.840 we, just like a regular scene, set out a grid, 00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:41.720 but these ones were much bigger. They were 20 00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:45.470 by... 20 meters so it was quite a large grid 00:15:45.470 --> 00:15:49.769 system and we would do one unit at a time so 00:15:49.769 --> 00:15:52.710 we would have an excavator in the unit and we 00:15:52.710 --> 00:15:57.090 had an anthropology technician monitoring so 00:15:57.090 --> 00:16:00.879 they were looking in as the excavator was also 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:03.179 looking at what they were excavating so if either 00:16:03.179 --> 00:16:06.279 one of them saw something then they would pause 00:16:06.279 --> 00:16:09.440 and then I would go in and check out what it 00:16:09.440 --> 00:16:13.559 was they saw so we had that system in place then 00:16:13.559 --> 00:16:16.580 anything that got all the soil that got excavated 00:16:16.580 --> 00:16:21.139 went into a dump truck and then the dump truck 00:16:21.139 --> 00:16:23.240 would be put through the soil the dump truck 00:16:23.240 --> 00:16:26.000 went through a machine called the Grizzly, which 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:29.259 was a sorting machine. And then that was set 00:16:29.259 --> 00:16:32.139 at three different sizes. And the three different 00:16:32.139 --> 00:16:34.440 sizes of materials that it was sorting would 00:16:34.440 --> 00:16:37.279 go out on conveyor belts. And the anthropology 00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:40.820 technicians were actually along the conveyor 00:16:40.820 --> 00:16:44.039 belts. And their job was to, keeping their hands 00:16:44.039 --> 00:16:46.179 in all that soil that was coming by on the conveyor, 00:16:46.320 --> 00:16:50.200 pick out anything that wasn't soil. So they were 00:16:50.200 --> 00:16:54.179 picking out, you know, needles and garbage and 00:16:54.179 --> 00:16:58.379 anything animal bone of course bone of any kind 00:16:58.379 --> 00:17:01.080 anything that was just not part of the soil they 00:17:01.080 --> 00:17:03.700 would pull that out and we worked in one hour 00:17:03.700 --> 00:17:07.650 blocks so that Everything got timed. We knew 00:17:07.650 --> 00:17:10.230 exactly what unit we were working in. We knew 00:17:10.230 --> 00:17:13.809 who was working on the conveyors at that time. 00:17:13.990 --> 00:17:18.089 And so anything that got taken out got put into 00:17:18.089 --> 00:17:21.029 their, they had buckets and they had tables behind 00:17:21.029 --> 00:17:23.910 them where all of the things that they located 00:17:23.910 --> 00:17:28.630 in that hour would be put. And then the next 00:17:28.630 --> 00:17:30.829 team would come in at the end of the hour and 00:17:30.829 --> 00:17:34.230 the team that was just leaving would make sure 00:17:34.230 --> 00:17:36.940 they had. all the information about what unit 00:17:36.940 --> 00:17:39.599 it was, what the timeframe was, and then they 00:17:39.599 --> 00:17:41.799 would go up and further complete all the paperwork 00:17:41.799 --> 00:17:44.519 to go with it. So we had that chain of custody 00:17:44.519 --> 00:17:49.259 going the whole way. And of course, our technicians 00:17:49.259 --> 00:17:53.619 didn't always know kind of the full scope of 00:17:53.619 --> 00:17:56.279 what forensic anthropology is all about and how 00:17:56.279 --> 00:17:58.160 you maintain chain of custody and all of that. 00:17:58.200 --> 00:18:01.579 So they all had to be trained in the process 00:18:01.579 --> 00:18:06.690 of chain of custody. We had... I think at one 00:18:06.690 --> 00:18:10.789 point and for quite a while, we had over 100 00:18:10.789 --> 00:18:14.410 anthropology technicians working on that site 00:18:14.410 --> 00:18:17.069 because we had a whole team on for an hour and 00:18:17.069 --> 00:18:18.990 then they would have to go off and another team 00:18:18.990 --> 00:18:20.690 would be on for the next hour and then they'd 00:18:20.690 --> 00:18:23.289 alternate all day long. And the reason for that 00:18:23.289 --> 00:18:27.789 is because when all of the debris and potentially 00:18:27.789 --> 00:18:31.109 human remains were going past on the conveyor, 00:18:31.130 --> 00:18:34.740 if... If anybody sort of didn't see something 00:18:34.740 --> 00:18:38.559 and a piece of someone went off the conveyor, 00:18:38.700 --> 00:18:41.480 that was the last time that anybody would have 00:18:41.480 --> 00:18:44.000 eyes on that, you know, that possible person 00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:48.000 there. And so we wanted people to be standing 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:50.079 at that conveyor with fresh eyes. We wanted to 00:18:50.079 --> 00:18:53.240 make sure that we didn't miss anything. So we 00:18:53.240 --> 00:18:56.220 actually had, I think it was, depending on which 00:18:56.220 --> 00:18:59.640 conveyor they were on, we had um something like 00:18:59.640 --> 00:19:02.240 six on one side and six on the other side so 00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:04.779 anything that got missed by the first two would 00:19:04.779 --> 00:19:07.200 be caught by the second two or the third two 00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:09.839 right as it went down the line and then at the 00:19:09.839 --> 00:19:12.779 very end the conveyor kind of went up and it 00:19:12.779 --> 00:19:16.680 dropped off the end and then we had two more 00:19:16.680 --> 00:19:19.900 people watching as things came off the end and 00:19:19.900 --> 00:19:21.680 so they could hopefully see anything that we 00:19:21.680 --> 00:19:25.089 kind of lit up as it fell down and then they 00:19:25.089 --> 00:19:27.829 would pull that out with rakes and so all of 00:19:27.829 --> 00:19:30.549 the things that they pulled out and they documented 00:19:30.549 --> 00:19:35.410 came to me if it was potentially organic or bone 00:19:35.410 --> 00:19:39.289 and I examined all of that as well as going to 00:19:39.289 --> 00:19:42.230 the unit that was being excavated if somebody 00:19:42.230 --> 00:19:46.670 saw something in the moment right so it took 00:19:46.670 --> 00:19:49.349 a little while to work out that protocol in order 00:19:49.349 --> 00:19:52.480 to get that protocol figured out and the way 00:19:52.480 --> 00:19:54.299 to build in those redundancies and make sure 00:19:54.299 --> 00:19:58.599 that we weren't overlooking anything. A couple 00:19:58.599 --> 00:20:01.279 of the police officers who were in charge of 00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:04.819 the logistics of the setup, they went down to 00:20:04.819 --> 00:20:10.140 the site of the Twin Towers because this project 00:20:10.140 --> 00:20:14.000 began in February of 2002 and the Twin Towers 00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:17.740 came down in 2001. So the search at the Twin 00:20:17.740 --> 00:20:21.440 Towers was really getting... going and had really 00:20:21.440 --> 00:20:24.779 begun to be established by the time the Picton 00:20:24.779 --> 00:20:28.579 site came along. And we actually had a good look 00:20:28.579 --> 00:20:34.440 at how that was being dealt with to search through 00:20:34.440 --> 00:20:38.339 debris for people in such a large, large scale. 00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:42.160 And so we adapted that, they adapted that methodology, 00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:46.339 and then everybody had to be trained in it, including 00:20:46.339 --> 00:20:49.059 these hundred techs, the anthro techs, because 00:20:49.900 --> 00:20:53.200 You know, Canada isn't as big as the U .S. and 00:20:53.200 --> 00:20:57.660 the number of forensic anthropologists in Canada 00:20:57.660 --> 00:21:02.660 is very small. And at that time it was even smaller. 00:21:02.819 --> 00:21:07.299 And so the students available and the recently 00:21:07.299 --> 00:21:10.099 graduated people available to assist with this 00:21:10.099 --> 00:21:13.349 process was. quite a small number. So we had 00:21:13.349 --> 00:21:17.670 to end up hiring also some archaeologists, bioarchaeologists, 00:21:17.849 --> 00:21:21.170 etc. And most of them had no experience at all 00:21:21.170 --> 00:21:24.730 with forensic anthro. So I did have to do a few 00:21:24.730 --> 00:21:29.069 presentations to explain kind of what we're looking 00:21:29.069 --> 00:21:31.589 for and how we're looking for it and why we're 00:21:31.589 --> 00:21:34.250 looking for it and how we need to behave. And 00:21:34.250 --> 00:21:37.609 then, of course, the RCMP, Royal Canadian Mounted 00:21:37.609 --> 00:21:41.539 Police, they had a couple of presentations themselves 00:21:41.539 --> 00:21:44.619 talking more about the investigation the importance 00:21:44.619 --> 00:21:46.859 of chain of custody and you know they came at 00:21:46.859 --> 00:21:48.819 it from that perspective and of course there 00:21:48.819 --> 00:21:52.359 was safety and basically everybody was presenting 00:21:52.359 --> 00:21:55.319 to everybody else so that we all hopefully had 00:21:55.319 --> 00:21:58.339 a really good solid understanding of what needed 00:21:58.339 --> 00:22:01.930 to be done And I also did a bit of training on 00:22:01.930 --> 00:22:04.650 what to be looking for. So I brought in some 00:22:04.650 --> 00:22:07.109 examples, showed the team what they were looking 00:22:07.109 --> 00:22:10.470 for. And then we did a bit of training where 00:22:10.470 --> 00:22:14.170 we told them we're going to do this. So that 00:22:14.170 --> 00:22:16.750 wasn't like complete out of the blue. But we 00:22:16.750 --> 00:22:19.450 took a couple of animal bones and put it through 00:22:19.450 --> 00:22:21.869 the system so that we could see if we could actually 00:22:21.869 --> 00:22:24.210 find it. Like, did the system work? Because it 00:22:24.210 --> 00:22:27.470 seemed like a great idea. But until... You try 00:22:27.470 --> 00:22:29.130 it, you don't actually know if it's going to 00:22:29.130 --> 00:22:31.950 work, right? Do we have enough redundancy built 00:22:31.950 --> 00:22:34.269 in? Are we separating things small enough? All 00:22:34.269 --> 00:22:37.049 of those things. And thankfully, we did find 00:22:37.049 --> 00:22:39.349 the ones that we put in as our tasks, so we knew 00:22:39.349 --> 00:22:42.849 it was working well. And of course, it didn't 00:22:42.849 --> 00:22:45.650 start off in this perfect way right at the very 00:22:45.650 --> 00:22:48.630 beginning. We had to figure out a lot of details, 00:22:48.769 --> 00:22:51.650 like what do you put over people so they're not 00:22:51.650 --> 00:22:53.670 standing in the rain as they're trying to do 00:22:53.670 --> 00:22:57.529 this job, right? How high do you, some of the 00:22:57.529 --> 00:22:59.069 things are kind of funny that you don't probably 00:22:59.069 --> 00:23:00.930 think about. We're working on conveyor belts. 00:23:01.130 --> 00:23:03.549 We had somebody who was less than five feet tall 00:23:03.549 --> 00:23:06.029 and we had another person who was over six feet. 00:23:06.329 --> 00:23:09.029 So what height do you set the conveyor belt at 00:23:09.029 --> 00:23:11.369 just to make it ergonomically comfortable for 00:23:11.369 --> 00:23:14.569 the whole team, right? And so we had a couple 00:23:14.569 --> 00:23:17.250 of people who had to be on step stools and eventually, 00:23:17.490 --> 00:23:20.190 and we had ergonomic pads and we had like, there 00:23:20.190 --> 00:23:23.150 was a lot of work that went into how to make 00:23:23.150 --> 00:23:26.910 this a. functional and safe place for the people 00:23:26.910 --> 00:23:33.470 to work um one of the other sorry for sites like 00:23:33.470 --> 00:23:36.349 this I know at least on the American side a lot 00:23:36.349 --> 00:23:39.049 of times uh or at least the ones that I have 00:23:39.049 --> 00:23:43.369 been a part of the police are technically in 00:23:43.369 --> 00:23:46.490 charge of all of it and you're just there as 00:23:46.490 --> 00:23:49.849 like a consult of like this is what I would do 00:23:49.849 --> 00:23:53.200 if I was in charge Do you find on the Canadian 00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:57.240 side it runs kind of the same way or do they 00:23:57.240 --> 00:24:00.099 hand over a little more power because it is your 00:24:00.099 --> 00:24:04.740 specialty? Yeah, I guess that's my question. 00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:09.400 That's another good question. It depends a little 00:24:09.400 --> 00:24:12.299 bit on who you're working with and probably the 00:24:12.299 --> 00:24:14.259 same in the U .S. if they've ever worked with 00:24:14.259 --> 00:24:17.529 you before. So if they know you and they know 00:24:17.529 --> 00:24:20.029 what you're capable of, they're much more likely 00:24:20.029 --> 00:24:24.009 to sort of say, OK, this is what we need. And 00:24:24.009 --> 00:24:26.990 now you tell us what you need and you kind of 00:24:26.990 --> 00:24:30.750 work together and make it happen. When we started 00:24:30.750 --> 00:24:36.589 at Picton, the person who introduced me to the 00:24:36.589 --> 00:24:43.190 lead and, you know, the I'd say lead site investigators. 00:24:44.279 --> 00:24:47.259 He knew me. And so he introduced me and said, 00:24:47.319 --> 00:24:49.220 she's, you know, she's going to be really helpful, 00:24:49.440 --> 00:24:52.019 et cetera. And I explained to them what I can 00:24:52.019 --> 00:24:57.240 do. The coroner, one of the coroners that was 00:24:57.240 --> 00:25:00.319 working at the time had a lot of experience working 00:25:00.319 --> 00:25:03.119 with recovery human remains and I knew him. So 00:25:03.119 --> 00:25:05.700 there was an introduction there, but it wasn't 00:25:05.700 --> 00:25:08.059 quite the same as having worked with people. 00:25:08.980 --> 00:25:11.140 in the past and they know what you can do and 00:25:11.140 --> 00:25:13.440 all of that sort of thing so at first there was 00:25:13.440 --> 00:25:16.920 a little bit more you know they're in charge 00:25:16.920 --> 00:25:20.140 this is the way they want it but then when I 00:25:20.140 --> 00:25:22.240 would make suggestions and explain to them why 00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:25.599 things really would be better if it went in this 00:25:25.599 --> 00:25:27.960 direction or that direction they were really 00:25:27.960 --> 00:25:31.119 good about it for the most part I think the team 00:25:31.119 --> 00:25:33.019 worked really well together there were a couple 00:25:33.019 --> 00:25:35.359 things that you know people have to learn the 00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:40.220 hard way which is funny after the fact but in 00:25:40.220 --> 00:25:44.880 the moment is a little frustrating so One of 00:25:44.880 --> 00:25:46.519 the things, as an example, one of the things 00:25:46.519 --> 00:25:49.779 that we encountered at the Picton site was because 00:25:49.779 --> 00:25:53.180 it was a farm and they buried a lot of animals 00:25:53.180 --> 00:25:56.940 on the farm. There were areas where there would 00:25:56.940 --> 00:26:00.640 be two or three, say, cows buried together. And 00:26:00.640 --> 00:26:03.539 because of the water table, you'd get massive 00:26:03.539 --> 00:26:06.480 amounts of adipocere. So think of a person, think 00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:09.079 of a cow, think of how much adipocere that will 00:26:09.079 --> 00:26:17.970 be. Our lovely logistics people thought that 00:26:17.970 --> 00:26:20.950 it would be a good idea to just put all this 00:26:20.950 --> 00:26:25.349 soil and the cow bones and adipocere through 00:26:25.349 --> 00:26:28.950 the same process as everything else. And I suggested 00:26:28.950 --> 00:26:31.289 that wasn't a good idea because adipocere you 00:26:31.289 --> 00:26:33.089 really don't want going through your screens 00:26:33.089 --> 00:26:36.839 and all of that. Sometimes people have to try 00:26:36.839 --> 00:26:39.539 and see what happens. And so I think it took 00:26:39.539 --> 00:26:41.759 about a day and a half or two days to clean out 00:26:41.759 --> 00:26:46.400 the screen and the conveyors so that things would 00:26:46.400 --> 00:26:50.079 work properly and we could move forward. So that 00:26:50.079 --> 00:26:52.920 led to a whole new protocol specific to these 00:26:52.920 --> 00:26:59.019 kinds of adipocere areas. And it actually led 00:26:59.019 --> 00:27:00.859 to a really nice protocol, a really good protocol, 00:27:00.920 --> 00:27:04.619 I think, where the whole team would go. in all 00:27:04.619 --> 00:27:07.359 the personal protective equipment and they had 00:27:07.359 --> 00:27:11.859 rakes and the excavator would excavate out what 00:27:11.859 --> 00:27:15.839 appeared to be the extent after I had gone into 00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:18.539 the pit and said I don't see any human bone here 00:27:18.539 --> 00:27:21.779 we'll take it out and then they laid it down 00:27:21.779 --> 00:27:24.640 on an area that had already been searched and 00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:26.559 the team went through with rakes and they pulled 00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:29.710 everything out and so they pulled out all the 00:27:29.710 --> 00:27:31.390 bone they pulled out everything and then I was 00:27:31.390 --> 00:27:33.690 able to go through and just examine everything 00:27:33.690 --> 00:27:37.069 individually and so that worked out really well 00:27:37.069 --> 00:27:38.950 and of course all that adipocere could then go 00:27:38.950 --> 00:27:42.690 back into a pit because we did not need to keep 00:27:42.690 --> 00:27:47.170 it and that worked much better but after those 00:27:47.170 --> 00:27:50.329 kinds of experiences where people learn the hard 00:27:50.329 --> 00:27:53.130 way they do tend to listen to you a little bit 00:27:53.130 --> 00:27:58.339 sooner in the process. Speaking of learning the 00:27:58.339 --> 00:28:02.259 hard way, and you've mentioned it a couple times 00:28:02.259 --> 00:28:07.160 of trying to adapt. One of the things that I've 00:28:07.160 --> 00:28:13.579 learned working on a lot of scenes is you develop 00:28:13.579 --> 00:28:20.789 a plan. done your research before you show up, 00:28:20.809 --> 00:28:23.509 you've developed a plan, you know exactly what 00:28:23.509 --> 00:28:26.589 you're going to do, and you show up, and five 00:28:26.589 --> 00:28:32.430 minutes after you've shown up, it's obsolete 00:28:32.430 --> 00:28:36.890 almost, because the situation on the scene has 00:28:36.890 --> 00:28:43.069 changed to some degree that you were not expecting, 00:28:43.230 --> 00:28:49.920 or information that... You should have been given, 00:28:50.059 --> 00:28:54.980 was not given, or was incorrect. Anything of 00:28:54.980 --> 00:28:59.059 that nature. So what challenges do you find, 00:28:59.240 --> 00:29:04.819 both with a case similar to Picton, whether it 00:29:04.819 --> 00:29:10.640 be as large and as massive as Picton was, or 00:29:10.640 --> 00:29:13.880 other sort of cases like that, or even just a 00:29:13.880 --> 00:29:17.420 small, straightforward case? What challenges 00:29:17.420 --> 00:29:20.519 do you find and how do you overcome them? When 00:29:20.519 --> 00:29:23.480 it comes to that, all right, I have my plan. 00:29:23.599 --> 00:29:27.460 I show up and, well, this isn't what I planned 00:29:27.460 --> 00:29:36.220 on. Well, going into a scene, I like to think 00:29:36.220 --> 00:29:39.779 of the plan as more of a living document, an 00:29:39.779 --> 00:29:45.240 adaptable kind of plan. You go in, hopefully. 00:29:46.039 --> 00:29:48.579 covering as many of the basis as possible with 00:29:48.579 --> 00:29:50.599 the idea of how you're going to approach it. 00:29:50.740 --> 00:29:53.619 And I usually write that all down. So I have 00:29:53.619 --> 00:29:56.380 it documented how we're going to start anyways, 00:29:56.480 --> 00:30:00.460 or what the general plan is. And then when you 00:30:00.460 --> 00:30:02.480 get that new information or things are changing, 00:30:02.660 --> 00:30:07.980 I find that it is easier to adapt than to have 00:30:07.980 --> 00:30:10.390 to start. You know, like if you came to the scene 00:30:10.390 --> 00:30:12.069 and you didn't even have a starting point, right? 00:30:12.109 --> 00:30:14.529 It's much easier, it's much quicker to adapt 00:30:14.529 --> 00:30:19.009 an existing plan than to kind of arrive cold 00:30:19.009 --> 00:30:22.349 and have to develop it in the moment. It's also 00:30:22.349 --> 00:30:24.569 really, I find, helpful from the perspective 00:30:24.569 --> 00:30:28.670 of documentation and if you have to go to court 00:30:28.670 --> 00:30:31.690 to explain what you did. Because if you've got 00:30:31.690 --> 00:30:35.029 the plan and you have a reason for changing that 00:30:35.029 --> 00:30:38.970 plan and you document your reason, then... All 00:30:38.970 --> 00:30:41.809 that entire process is there. And when you go 00:30:41.809 --> 00:30:44.130 to court, you can explain it. It makes sense. 00:30:44.250 --> 00:30:46.769 You don't get a lot of pushback from anyone about 00:30:46.769 --> 00:30:48.930 why you did this or why you did that because 00:30:48.930 --> 00:30:52.009 you can explain everything that you did. And 00:30:52.009 --> 00:30:55.069 yes, of course, there's many different ways to 00:30:55.069 --> 00:30:59.309 process a scene. I do it great, but somebody 00:30:59.309 --> 00:31:01.309 else might not do it exactly the same way. And 00:31:01.309 --> 00:31:03.390 it will still be great because as long as you're 00:31:03.390 --> 00:31:05.930 doing it in a really systematic way and you're 00:31:05.930 --> 00:31:09.839 ideally. So ensuring that you're going from the 00:31:09.839 --> 00:31:15.779 area with the least amount of potential evidence 00:31:15.779 --> 00:31:19.019 so that you can approach it carefully and collect 00:31:19.019 --> 00:31:23.640 everything as you're going. Then regardless of 00:31:23.640 --> 00:31:27.319 exactly how you do it, you should at the end 00:31:27.319 --> 00:31:30.640 both come out with very good results. So I find 00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:35.339 the ability to explain the plan afterwards and 00:31:35.339 --> 00:31:38.500 make sure it's... it is systematic and make sure 00:31:38.500 --> 00:31:41.500 it is thorough it works if you have a plan but 00:31:41.500 --> 00:31:43.880 if you kind of come to the scene and you go oh 00:31:43.880 --> 00:31:46.119 this looks like this is happening and this looks 00:31:46.119 --> 00:31:47.799 like that i have i think i need to try this and 00:31:47.799 --> 00:31:49.960 then if that's not working to try that it becomes 00:31:49.960 --> 00:31:53.220 really piecemeal and bit like you know shot in 00:31:53.220 --> 00:31:55.720 the dark so that's definitely not a way to approach 00:31:55.720 --> 00:31:59.079 any scene and the more complex the scene the 00:31:59.079 --> 00:32:00.740 greater the chances are you're going to overlook 00:32:00.740 --> 00:32:09.529 something um So when you do show up, though, 00:32:09.589 --> 00:32:13.690 you have that initial information and that scene 00:32:13.690 --> 00:32:17.069 information, you've developed a plan, you've 00:32:17.069 --> 00:32:22.309 surveyed, and you've started to encounter some 00:32:22.309 --> 00:32:31.470 of the initial unknowns. Overall, what are some 00:32:31.470 --> 00:32:36.630 of the major challenges that... Coming into place. 00:32:37.730 --> 00:32:42.970 When you're processing. Different types of saints. 00:32:43.089 --> 00:32:46.329 When you're processing something. As large as. 00:32:47.809 --> 00:32:53.329 As Picton. Or as complex as Picton. Or as something. 00:32:53.609 --> 00:33:00.529 As house fires. As fire saints. What are some 00:33:00.529 --> 00:33:03.910 of those challenges. That you. come across that 00:33:03.910 --> 00:33:08.849 you have to figure out how to deal with when 00:33:08.849 --> 00:33:15.890 you've made that initial assessment? I would 00:33:15.890 --> 00:33:18.609 say, you know, because there are so many scenes 00:33:18.609 --> 00:33:21.670 and they can be complex in different ways, you 00:33:21.670 --> 00:33:24.589 really do have to be adaptable and be able to 00:33:25.119 --> 00:33:27.720 think on your feet on the best way to approach 00:33:27.720 --> 00:33:30.460 things. I find one of the big challenges, though, 00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:34.240 regardless of the scene type, is the expectation 00:33:34.240 --> 00:33:37.140 that things should happen fast, fast, fast, right? 00:33:37.240 --> 00:33:41.240 Because especially if it's a case that's evolving 00:33:41.240 --> 00:33:44.670 in the moment. So I've had some cases where they're 00:33:44.670 --> 00:33:47.309 trying to find the suspect as we're processing 00:33:47.309 --> 00:33:50.109 the scene and things are happening so fast new 00:33:50.109 --> 00:33:52.549 information is coming in it's changing things 00:33:52.549 --> 00:33:55.990 and it's really interesting and exciting to see 00:33:55.990 --> 00:33:58.390 how this case is evolving but at the same time 00:33:58.390 --> 00:34:00.269 people are expecting that you're going to give 00:34:00.269 --> 00:34:02.130 them this answer now because they need it now 00:34:02.130 --> 00:34:04.410 because they need to follow up on this lead or 00:34:04.410 --> 00:34:06.150 that lead or should be they doing this or should 00:34:06.150 --> 00:34:09.980 they be doing that right and so Other investigators 00:34:09.980 --> 00:34:12.880 can put a lot of pressure on saying we need this 00:34:12.880 --> 00:34:16.400 and we need it fast. But of course, forensic 00:34:16.400 --> 00:34:18.800 anthropologists out there will know that you 00:34:18.800 --> 00:34:20.780 don't want to approach a scene fast because the 00:34:20.780 --> 00:34:24.460 faster you go and the more you're rushing trying 00:34:24.460 --> 00:34:26.440 to get something, there's a greater chance you're 00:34:26.440 --> 00:34:28.559 actually going to miss something. And that's 00:34:28.559 --> 00:34:33.340 going to be a huge problem. So trying to slow 00:34:33.340 --> 00:34:37.150 people down to do it right. in the moment when 00:34:37.150 --> 00:34:39.429 there's a lot of pressure to go fast is a big 00:34:39.429 --> 00:34:42.269 challenge and to convey the importance of doing 00:34:42.269 --> 00:34:45.469 it at the correct speed. So I like to say we 00:34:45.469 --> 00:34:47.210 don't do it fast, we do it efficiently, right? 00:34:47.269 --> 00:34:53.989 We want to do it as quickly as we can, but doing 00:34:53.989 --> 00:34:56.969 it properly, right? So if we can't do it properly, 00:34:57.070 --> 00:34:58.969 we need to slow it down to make sure we are doing 00:34:58.969 --> 00:35:02.940 it properly. So that's always a huge challenge, 00:35:02.980 --> 00:35:06.320 just trying to manage, in a way, manage the expectations 00:35:06.320 --> 00:35:10.079 of the investigators on how fast or how slow 00:35:10.079 --> 00:35:12.780 or why you're here or why you're there. But if 00:35:12.780 --> 00:35:16.579 they are briefed at the beginning, there's a 00:35:16.579 --> 00:35:20.739 much greater chance that they're going to accept 00:35:20.739 --> 00:35:22.420 it. They're still going to probably say, do you 00:35:22.420 --> 00:35:25.880 have it yet? But they're going to be a little 00:35:25.880 --> 00:35:27.739 more trusting that you're doing it at the pace 00:35:27.739 --> 00:35:37.800 it needs to be done. Jenna? All right. So on 00:35:37.800 --> 00:35:42.019 a scene of that scale, if it's moving at a pace 00:35:42.019 --> 00:35:44.119 of about a year and a half, that is not quick. 00:35:45.119 --> 00:35:47.820 And so at that point, do you get to make the 00:35:47.820 --> 00:35:52.159 call about when to close a scene like that? Do 00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:54.199 you get told to close a scene like that? And 00:35:54.199 --> 00:35:57.619 if you are deciding when to close that scene, 00:35:57.719 --> 00:36:01.980 is it a psychological challenge to know and be 00:36:01.980 --> 00:36:04.539 able to tell yourself like I? I think I found 00:36:04.539 --> 00:36:08.579 everything I could find or I've literally found 00:36:08.579 --> 00:36:11.639 everything that is there. Like, when do you call 00:36:11.639 --> 00:36:18.460 it? So in the Pickton case, it's interesting 00:36:18.460 --> 00:36:21.940 because there were three scenes associated with 00:36:21.940 --> 00:36:26.500 that case. And one where the farmhouse was and 00:36:26.500 --> 00:36:29.380 where Robert Pickton's trailer was, the main 00:36:29.380 --> 00:36:32.730 property. The decision was made almost from the 00:36:32.730 --> 00:36:35.630 beginning that the site would have to be searched 00:36:35.630 --> 00:36:39.230 in its entirety. And it was going to be searched 00:36:39.230 --> 00:36:44.070 down to sterile. And that was the end. So that 00:36:44.070 --> 00:36:46.730 was nice because that decision was made and I 00:36:46.730 --> 00:36:49.309 agreed with it. And, you know, it would have 00:36:49.309 --> 00:36:51.150 been the decision I would have made anyways. 00:36:51.309 --> 00:36:54.710 But the, you know, the scale and the time and 00:36:54.710 --> 00:36:57.329 the resources and the cost and all of that sort 00:36:57.329 --> 00:37:01.400 of thing is something that is. Well above what 00:37:01.400 --> 00:37:04.280 I would normally work with, you know, costing 00:37:04.280 --> 00:37:07.099 in the millions of dollars to do this one scene. 00:37:07.599 --> 00:37:10.880 So I was happy that those decisions were made 00:37:10.880 --> 00:37:14.860 at a much, much higher level. When we considered, 00:37:14.900 --> 00:37:18.380 you know, what we actually knew, what was likely, 00:37:18.519 --> 00:37:21.159 how could we be sure that all of these women 00:37:21.159 --> 00:37:23.900 were searched for properly, etc. And that decision 00:37:23.900 --> 00:37:26.179 was made that we need to make sure that we can 00:37:26.179 --> 00:37:28.659 go back to those families and say we. fully search 00:37:28.659 --> 00:37:32.380 this scene and they're not there if we didn't 00:37:32.380 --> 00:37:34.340 find them then we're quite confident they're 00:37:34.340 --> 00:37:38.480 not there now in the second scene because it 00:37:38.480 --> 00:37:42.000 wasn't his property it was just an area where 00:37:42.000 --> 00:37:44.639 you know people walk through and we think that 00:37:44.639 --> 00:37:46.679 he probably had walked through at some point 00:37:46.679 --> 00:37:51.940 the approach was a little bit different and we 00:37:51.940 --> 00:37:56.269 did a thorough search including you know raking 00:37:56.269 --> 00:37:59.110 and there was there were some little slopes and 00:37:59.110 --> 00:38:01.989 there were tall meadow grasses which we cut down 00:38:01.989 --> 00:38:04.230 and we hand searched and all of these things 00:38:04.230 --> 00:38:06.429 so we did all of these things very thorough as 00:38:06.429 --> 00:38:10.170 well but there was a little bit more reliance 00:38:10.170 --> 00:38:12.789 on me to tell them what I thought needed to be 00:38:12.789 --> 00:38:16.650 done and when I was satisfied that we had done 00:38:16.650 --> 00:38:20.469 everything we needed to do to be certain that 00:38:20.469 --> 00:38:24.590 there were not more remains left at that site. 00:38:24.869 --> 00:38:28.769 And at that one, because we didn't completely 00:38:28.769 --> 00:38:32.090 excavate everything down to the ground, you know, 00:38:32.090 --> 00:38:38.769 down to the groundwater, there is that potential 00:38:38.769 --> 00:38:43.849 that maybe we've overlooked something. But at 00:38:43.849 --> 00:38:46.989 the same time, we did such a thorough ground 00:38:46.989 --> 00:38:49.769 search that I feel pretty confident and the the 00:38:49.769 --> 00:38:53.590 areas that we did excavate we did in a really 00:38:53.590 --> 00:38:56.190 systematic way and so I was pretty confident 00:38:56.190 --> 00:39:00.110 that we ruled out those possibilities but as 00:39:00.110 --> 00:39:02.789 you know you can never be 100 certain unless 00:39:02.789 --> 00:39:06.750 like in the first scene you can actually excavate 00:39:06.750 --> 00:39:12.010 it right down to groundwater so do you find that 00:39:12.010 --> 00:39:16.730 when making those types of decisions it has gotten 00:39:16.730 --> 00:39:20.730 easier throughout your career of like, you know, 00:39:20.730 --> 00:39:23.329 you've seen more cases, maybe less so for the 00:39:23.329 --> 00:39:26.849 Picton case, but like your smaller, more quote 00:39:26.849 --> 00:39:30.250 unquote traditional type of scenes where you're 00:39:30.250 --> 00:39:33.090 like, okay, I've seen 10 of these beforehand. 00:39:33.309 --> 00:39:37.070 I know pretty much exactly what we're doing and 00:39:37.070 --> 00:39:39.750 you feel more confident or do you still feel 00:39:39.750 --> 00:39:43.190 similar to your first scenes where you're like, 00:39:44.070 --> 00:39:47.210 No, it's still a hard decision to say, no, we 00:39:47.210 --> 00:39:50.130 have to call it quits on we think we've done 00:39:50.130 --> 00:39:55.849 enough. Well, I would say in some ways it's gotten 00:39:55.849 --> 00:40:00.010 a little easier because you do see the patterns, 00:40:00.130 --> 00:40:05.570 right? So we always or I always consider, I guess 00:40:05.570 --> 00:40:07.989 the ones that tend to be the most challenging 00:40:07.989 --> 00:40:11.510 are the ones that are scattered. Because obviously, 00:40:11.530 --> 00:40:13.690 if you have a grave and you're able to excavate 00:40:13.690 --> 00:40:16.550 fully, great, you're happy. But the scattered 00:40:16.550 --> 00:40:21.329 cases are the tricky ones because we get coyotes, 00:40:21.349 --> 00:40:26.030 we get bears. They will take body parts really 00:40:26.030 --> 00:40:31.889 far away, like miles away. So in some ways, you 00:40:31.889 --> 00:40:34.369 have to acknowledge the reality that you just 00:40:34.369 --> 00:40:37.389 may not be able to recover the entire person. 00:40:38.380 --> 00:40:41.739 Given that that is a reality of these kinds of 00:40:41.739 --> 00:40:45.800 scenes, then we try to work from, you know, what 00:40:45.800 --> 00:40:47.579 are the scatter patterns normally associated 00:40:47.579 --> 00:40:50.079 with coyotes? What are the patterns normally 00:40:50.079 --> 00:40:52.039 associated with bears? Which one are we dealing 00:40:52.039 --> 00:40:56.179 with here? Where can we expect to look? How far 00:40:56.179 --> 00:41:01.280 can we take that? And in Canada and in Ontario 00:41:01.280 --> 00:41:05.019 in particular, we have a nice... sort of overlapping 00:41:05.019 --> 00:41:07.519 system. So we have the forensic anthropologist 00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:12.099 that has that skill set and will make decisions 00:41:12.099 --> 00:41:14.699 about, okay, this is what the expectations are. 00:41:14.760 --> 00:41:17.159 This is how we're going to search. But we do 00:41:17.159 --> 00:41:19.900 that also in conjunction with the search and 00:41:19.900 --> 00:41:22.800 rescue teams. And these are typically, there's 00:41:22.800 --> 00:41:26.400 an Ontario one in Ontario. So there's usually 00:41:26.400 --> 00:41:28.480 a provincial kind of search and rescue, and there 00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:31.500 might be more local ones for particular municipalities. 00:41:32.989 --> 00:41:36.869 And we work with them. They will go in a much 00:41:36.869 --> 00:41:39.570 bigger area that we tend to search because they 00:41:39.570 --> 00:41:41.550 do, you know, the hasty searches. So they're 00:41:41.550 --> 00:41:43.369 going through and they're doing, they've got 00:41:43.369 --> 00:41:47.090 their GPS and they're tracking their complete 00:41:47.090 --> 00:41:50.050 lines, etc. So we've got them going through. 00:41:50.489 --> 00:41:53.219 And if they see anything at all that... That 00:41:53.219 --> 00:41:56.400 helps kind of set some boundaries and, you know, 00:41:56.400 --> 00:41:58.340 when are we seeing things and how long has it 00:41:58.340 --> 00:42:01.019 been since we've seen things? Whereas the forensic 00:42:01.019 --> 00:42:03.219 anthropologist is focusing a bit more on the 00:42:03.219 --> 00:42:05.440 main concentration and working out from there 00:42:05.440 --> 00:42:08.300 typically. And then we also have canine units 00:42:08.300 --> 00:42:12.019 that go through. So they help us when we reach 00:42:12.019 --> 00:42:14.679 the end of where we can say, okay, the pattern 00:42:14.679 --> 00:42:17.179 is fading here. I'm not sure where it's going. 00:42:17.300 --> 00:42:21.239 And we'll also look at the distance from one. 00:42:22.179 --> 00:42:24.860 piece to the next piece like how far have we 00:42:24.860 --> 00:42:27.219 actually had to go before we found this next 00:42:27.219 --> 00:42:31.460 piece and that helps kind of figure out you know 00:42:31.460 --> 00:42:33.579 how much further might we have to go just to 00:42:33.579 --> 00:42:35.860 find the next piece and so the dogs are really 00:42:35.860 --> 00:42:37.940 good that way too because they can go through 00:42:37.940 --> 00:42:39.880 they can go through quickly and they can help 00:42:39.880 --> 00:42:46.280 maybe find one or two isolated pieces so and 00:42:46.280 --> 00:42:49.579 then of course there's the coroner who in Canada 00:42:49.579 --> 00:42:53.019 has the legal responsibility for the remains 00:42:53.019 --> 00:42:55.960 so we work with them and so all of these people 00:42:55.960 --> 00:42:58.880 the lead of the search and rescue the lead of 00:42:58.880 --> 00:43:01.539 the canine unit me and the coroner would all 00:43:01.539 --> 00:43:05.300 have a conversation about do we think that we 00:43:05.300 --> 00:43:09.980 have reached the extent that is um let's say 00:43:09.980 --> 00:43:12.380 feasible because you can always keep going but 00:43:12.380 --> 00:43:15.300 is it even feasible are we likely to find any 00:43:15.300 --> 00:43:18.630 more of this person And of course, we look at 00:43:18.630 --> 00:43:21.130 what actually are we missing as well, because 00:43:21.130 --> 00:43:24.809 if we're missing key pieces of a person, then 00:43:24.809 --> 00:43:27.650 ideally we want to continue looking until we 00:43:27.650 --> 00:43:29.809 find them. And if you find most of the body, 00:43:29.829 --> 00:43:33.090 but not the skull, that's a bit of an odd one. 00:43:33.130 --> 00:43:36.409 And we know that coyotes will roll them and move 00:43:36.409 --> 00:43:40.389 them. So yeah, so we kind of track those patterns 00:43:40.389 --> 00:43:42.949 and try to see if we can locate that missing 00:43:42.949 --> 00:43:45.010 skull. Of course, it's really important to do 00:43:45.010 --> 00:43:47.730 that kind of recovery. If it's a few smaller 00:43:47.730 --> 00:43:52.670 pieces, then that might mean a bit less of a, 00:43:52.809 --> 00:43:57.250 not a concern because we're concerned to recover 00:43:57.250 --> 00:43:59.389 the entire person and that's always the goal, 00:43:59.489 --> 00:44:02.809 but it's just probably less likely that we might 00:44:02.809 --> 00:44:06.289 find some of those smaller pieces if we reach 00:44:06.289 --> 00:44:11.030 this really large scatter, which we do quite 00:44:11.030 --> 00:44:16.230 frequently. Along those lines, not just with, 00:44:17.739 --> 00:44:24.119 feasibility and efficiency. Thinking, and I know 00:44:24.119 --> 00:44:27.780 you didn't work this case, but thinking to Winnipeg, 00:44:27.780 --> 00:44:33.260 where they recently recovered a couple of murdered 00:44:33.260 --> 00:44:36.739 indigenous women from a landfill outside of Winnipeg. 00:44:37.739 --> 00:44:41.969 Is there ever And thankfully, they did go in 00:44:41.969 --> 00:44:44.510 and finally and do an excavation and finally 00:44:44.510 --> 00:44:46.989 recovered them. But is there ever a situation 00:44:46.989 --> 00:44:53.989 where you would say. That's unsafe or the collective 00:44:53.989 --> 00:44:56.550 team you're working with would say, you know, 00:44:56.590 --> 00:45:02.590 we we know the individual is there. But we just 00:45:02.590 --> 00:45:06.309 we can't go in because of safety concerns. We 00:45:06.309 --> 00:45:08.130 don't want to put ourselves we don't want to 00:45:08.130 --> 00:45:13.610 put our team. in that line? Does safety come 00:45:13.610 --> 00:45:18.210 in in some way? Yeah, safety is a really important 00:45:18.210 --> 00:45:20.409 factor. It's always a primary consideration, 00:45:20.789 --> 00:45:23.989 but there are so many ways to mitigate. So even 00:45:23.989 --> 00:45:26.670 with the landfill case in Manitoba, I never considered 00:45:26.670 --> 00:45:31.030 that to be not feasible. That was always a feasible 00:45:31.030 --> 00:45:35.389 search, but... Yes, there was asbestos, so you 00:45:35.389 --> 00:45:38.130 get an asbestos specialist in to deal with that 00:45:38.130 --> 00:45:41.710 piece of that problem. There are issues with 00:45:41.710 --> 00:45:46.349 the height and the stability of all of the debris 00:45:46.349 --> 00:45:50.150 in the landfill, but the people who run the landfill 00:45:50.150 --> 00:45:52.869 deal with that all the time. So there are ways 00:45:52.869 --> 00:45:59.349 to mitigate those issues. And in the Picton case, 00:45:59.409 --> 00:46:01.849 for example, when you're starting to get down 00:46:01.849 --> 00:46:07.650 to these, 30 feet that your unit's 30 feet deep. 00:46:07.750 --> 00:46:09.550 Of course, there's all kinds of issues relating 00:46:09.550 --> 00:46:13.269 to the side walls being potentially kind of slumping 00:46:13.269 --> 00:46:15.789 in and that sort of thing. So there are other 00:46:15.789 --> 00:46:18.030 safety issues that we had to worry about there. 00:46:18.570 --> 00:46:22.570 We did have needles found on the property and 00:46:22.570 --> 00:46:27.710 even in the soil. So there were puncture proof 00:46:27.710 --> 00:46:32.519 gloves. We had full PPE. They had respirators. 00:46:32.519 --> 00:46:35.900 There's, you know, so many ways to really mitigate 00:46:35.900 --> 00:46:38.639 some of these problems. And even in cases like 00:46:38.639 --> 00:46:41.840 where there are bears, that is not a safe place 00:46:41.840 --> 00:46:45.960 to be around bears. But, you know, if you have 00:46:45.960 --> 00:46:48.280 somebody in there whose job it is to look for 00:46:48.280 --> 00:46:51.159 bears and they are there with, you know, a gun 00:46:51.159 --> 00:46:53.800 in hand ready to deal with any bears should they 00:46:53.800 --> 00:46:56.440 get out of control. And, you know, those types 00:46:56.440 --> 00:47:01.090 of things, they can all pretty much. I would 00:47:01.090 --> 00:47:04.409 say almost everything. I wouldn't say it would 00:47:04.409 --> 00:47:06.250 never happen that you would say you can't do 00:47:06.250 --> 00:47:09.389 it. But there's so many ways that you can manage 00:47:09.389 --> 00:47:13.750 the safety issues that I would really be reluctant 00:47:13.750 --> 00:47:16.429 to ever say no, it's not feasible to search for 00:47:16.429 --> 00:47:19.110 your loved one. Because I think there probably 00:47:19.110 --> 00:47:23.889 is a way that it could be managed. And just to 00:47:23.889 --> 00:47:27.130 push the question. Just a little – that envelope 00:47:27.130 --> 00:47:28.929 a little bit farther, that question a little 00:47:28.929 --> 00:47:33.530 bit farther. And I know we've seen what happened 00:47:33.530 --> 00:47:38.389 in New York with the Twin Towers and how the 00:47:38.389 --> 00:47:41.090 New York OCME dealt with that, how you all dealt 00:47:41.090 --> 00:47:47.010 with the Picton property, how DC's – or actually 00:47:47.010 --> 00:47:51.090 how Virginia's ME's office and others dealt with 00:47:51.090 --> 00:47:58.920 the Pentagon. And other different mass casualty 00:47:58.920 --> 00:48:07.980 events. But can you envision a situation where 00:48:07.980 --> 00:48:15.420 we'd reach or a case would reach critical mass, 00:48:15.699 --> 00:48:22.460 say? It's too big. There's just no real way to 00:48:22.460 --> 00:48:25.409 get a handle around it. And if not… If there 00:48:25.409 --> 00:48:29.090 is, how do you get a handle around it? How do 00:48:29.090 --> 00:48:37.869 you address that? Well, I think most cases, I 00:48:37.869 --> 00:48:40.329 think there would be always a way to approach 00:48:40.329 --> 00:48:43.550 it because everything is a matter of scale, right? 00:48:43.630 --> 00:48:48.050 So if you divide it into... smaller sections 00:48:48.050 --> 00:48:51.409 and do a section at a time a section at a time 00:48:51.409 --> 00:48:54.429 when it becomes I think unmanageable is when 00:48:54.429 --> 00:48:56.809 people have these unrealistic expectations like 00:48:56.809 --> 00:48:59.469 they're not going to pay more than a x number 00:48:59.469 --> 00:49:02.050 of dollars you can't have more than x number 00:49:02.050 --> 00:49:04.610 of people they're not going to provide whatever 00:49:04.610 --> 00:49:07.389 equipment is necessary right but if you have 00:49:07.389 --> 00:49:11.429 that willingness then yes it might take a year 00:49:11.429 --> 00:49:14.469 and a half and it may take over 200 people working 00:49:14.469 --> 00:49:18.820 six or seven days a week But you can do it, right? 00:49:18.940 --> 00:49:22.679 And, you know, yes, a landfill is not the ideal 00:49:22.679 --> 00:49:27.340 place to be searching in. But when you organize 00:49:27.340 --> 00:49:29.960 it and when you identify the likely areas and 00:49:29.960 --> 00:49:34.119 when you divide it up into more manageable protocols 00:49:34.119 --> 00:49:40.079 and steps, then it can be done. So I would say 00:49:40.079 --> 00:49:43.199 probably most things. I imagine there are... 00:49:43.630 --> 00:49:45.869 I mean, there are probably locations where it 00:49:45.869 --> 00:49:48.650 would become incredibly difficult, where you 00:49:48.650 --> 00:49:51.730 might have to be roped in or, you know, something 00:49:51.730 --> 00:49:55.510 along those lines. And that might cause a number 00:49:55.510 --> 00:50:00.349 of logistic issues that make it quite difficult 00:50:00.349 --> 00:50:02.690 to the point of maybe being impossible. So I 00:50:02.690 --> 00:50:05.849 wouldn't entirely rule it out. But I would say 00:50:05.849 --> 00:50:09.409 that as long as you had the support necessary 00:50:09.409 --> 00:50:14.260 there. their ways of managing very large scenes 00:50:14.260 --> 00:50:18.539 i say i know we're kind of coming up on our time 00:50:18.539 --> 00:50:21.579 but i have one kind of somewhat broad spectrum 00:50:21.579 --> 00:50:24.500 question to kind of go with this is i know a 00:50:24.500 --> 00:50:28.179 lot of times at least on the u .s side of things 00:50:28.179 --> 00:50:33.900 um we might have more anthropologists than canada 00:50:33.900 --> 00:50:38.219 does but we're also pretty spread out like there's 00:50:38.219 --> 00:50:40.059 not necessarily like eight anthropologists like 00:50:40.679 --> 00:50:43.159 I'm probably in one of the few places where there's 00:50:43.159 --> 00:50:46.400 just a horde of us in one area. Usually there's 00:50:46.400 --> 00:50:51.619 like one per state or something like that. And 00:50:51.619 --> 00:50:55.920 then with that comes often anthropologists get 00:50:55.920 --> 00:50:58.780 asked to help out with the scene, but aren't 00:50:58.780 --> 00:51:01.860 necessarily paid for their time and expertise 00:51:01.860 --> 00:51:06.039 and things like that. Do you find that Canada 00:51:06.039 --> 00:51:09.409 is different in that way that they like? I don't 00:51:09.409 --> 00:51:11.829 want to say value y 'all more, but like value 00:51:11.829 --> 00:51:16.150 the expertise to pay for that type of skill? 00:51:16.250 --> 00:51:20.269 Or do you still like, are you predominantly paid 00:51:20.269 --> 00:51:22.630 through, say, your university and you volunteer 00:51:22.630 --> 00:51:25.570 your time out to do scenes? Because I know a 00:51:25.570 --> 00:51:30.010 lot of times that's how it works on the US side. 00:51:32.079 --> 00:51:34.159 Yeah, it's a very interesting question because 00:51:34.159 --> 00:51:37.000 each jurisdiction seems to do it slightly differently. 00:51:37.159 --> 00:51:40.219 But overall, I think in Canada, it runs one of 00:51:40.219 --> 00:51:43.960 two ways. They either know what forensic anthropologists 00:51:43.960 --> 00:51:46.900 can do and they value us and they want us involved 00:51:46.900 --> 00:51:50.199 and we are paid, or they don't know what we do. 00:51:50.500 --> 00:51:53.059 You tell them and they're still not sure and 00:51:53.059 --> 00:51:56.219 they just decline. altogether so we're hoping 00:51:56.219 --> 00:51:58.760 that there are less of those areas and more of 00:51:58.760 --> 00:52:01.420 the ones that utilize forensic anthropology on 00:52:01.420 --> 00:52:05.400 a regular basis but one of the i guess one of 00:52:05.400 --> 00:52:09.539 the ideas in the canadian legal system is that 00:52:09.539 --> 00:52:12.539 seems to underlie this process is that experts 00:52:12.539 --> 00:52:15.739 are people who do this professionally and a professional 00:52:15.739 --> 00:52:19.139 gets paid so you can't be an expert witness and 00:52:19.139 --> 00:52:24.000 go to court if you're not being paid as a professional 00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:28.019 to do this job right and so if if you volunteer 00:52:28.019 --> 00:52:31.599 your time and you had to go to court then you 00:52:31.599 --> 00:52:33.840 would be you know a hobbyist or you would be 00:52:33.840 --> 00:52:37.800 a civilian person or you would be something other 00:52:37.800 --> 00:52:40.619 than a professional and a subject matter expert 00:52:40.619 --> 00:52:44.420 so that that helps certainly with the idea of 00:52:44.420 --> 00:52:48.599 the need to have your experts paid for the work 00:52:48.599 --> 00:52:52.170 that they do Why did I move back to the States? 00:52:53.469 --> 00:52:56.650 I'm not saying they always pay us well, but we 00:52:56.650 --> 00:53:03.489 do get paid. Well, I want to thank you for joining 00:53:03.489 --> 00:53:06.650 us. I do have one last question, though. And 00:53:06.650 --> 00:53:09.489 that is, you've worked all different types of 00:53:09.489 --> 00:53:16.030 scenes. And I just, is there a type of scene 00:53:16.030 --> 00:53:21.900 that you... prefer to work that you it's I don't 00:53:21.900 --> 00:53:25.019 want to say it's enjoyable but you you like to 00:53:25.019 --> 00:53:29.880 work that that that you yeah that you prefer 00:53:29.880 --> 00:53:35.760 to work I actually find all types of scenes really 00:53:35.760 --> 00:53:40.739 interesting and I enjoy the say enjoy the challenge 00:53:40.739 --> 00:53:43.199 of doing different kinds of scenes so from that 00:53:43.199 --> 00:53:46.780 perspective yes I would say enjoy them and every 00:53:46.780 --> 00:53:50.639 scene has its Something that's unique about it 00:53:50.639 --> 00:53:52.820 that makes it so interesting to be there and 00:53:52.820 --> 00:53:56.360 to be part of helping to recover that person 00:53:56.360 --> 00:53:59.079 and figure out what happened at that location. 00:54:01.599 --> 00:54:04.500 Scenes that are large, like the Picton scene, 00:54:04.579 --> 00:54:08.320 it's a really interesting dynamic and it's an 00:54:08.320 --> 00:54:11.710 interesting experience. Because you're working 00:54:11.710 --> 00:54:13.869 with these same people for a really long time. 00:54:13.869 --> 00:54:17.489 So you get to know people in a way that you don't 00:54:17.489 --> 00:54:23.019 often on other kinds of cases. There's also something 00:54:23.019 --> 00:54:25.840 quite satisfying of going into a case, doing 00:54:25.840 --> 00:54:28.619 a nice clean excavation and having everything 00:54:28.619 --> 00:54:31.380 kind of done it by the end of the day and be 00:54:31.380 --> 00:54:34.559 able to go home and have, you know, enjoyed the 00:54:34.559 --> 00:54:36.519 experience of meeting the new people at the new 00:54:36.519 --> 00:54:40.119 scene and working with them. So I would say there's, 00:54:40.119 --> 00:54:44.539 again, there's something that's interesting. 00:54:44.599 --> 00:54:48.579 I like, you know, the big scene searches because 00:54:48.579 --> 00:54:51.360 it's... Usually nice to be outside and spend 00:54:51.360 --> 00:54:54.800 the day outside, you know, organizing and working 00:54:54.800 --> 00:54:58.579 with people to locate someone whose family is 00:54:58.579 --> 00:55:03.659 waiting to hear about them. And burials are really 00:55:03.659 --> 00:55:07.239 interesting as well because they're usually, 00:55:07.380 --> 00:55:11.079 you know, get to put all the skill set together 00:55:11.079 --> 00:55:15.219 to do the nice recoveries that you kind of... 00:55:16.010 --> 00:55:19.389 learn and do with all the excavation skills and 00:55:19.389 --> 00:55:24.690 that sort of thing so fires fires are interesting 00:55:24.690 --> 00:55:28.610 in a number of ways and actually I don't mind 00:55:28.610 --> 00:55:31.429 doing the fire cases at all but the the thing 00:55:31.429 --> 00:55:33.429 that is actually a little bit hard about fire 00:55:33.429 --> 00:55:36.130 cases that's different from other cases for me 00:55:36.130 --> 00:55:41.809 is that in the other cases a burial or someone 00:55:41.809 --> 00:55:44.260 who's you know, died outside and bodies been 00:55:44.260 --> 00:55:46.780 scattered, et cetera, or been deposited outside. 00:55:46.960 --> 00:55:51.840 You see them the way that somebody left them, 00:55:51.880 --> 00:55:54.159 right? Somebody left them in the burial. Somebody 00:55:54.159 --> 00:55:57.980 left them out on the, in this property. Somebody 00:55:57.980 --> 00:56:00.900 left them in the garbage can, et cetera. And, 00:56:00.900 --> 00:56:07.039 you know, that to me, the lack of respect along, 00:56:07.119 --> 00:56:08.849 of course. they'd been killed, but obviously 00:56:08.849 --> 00:56:10.630 the lack of respect in the way that they've been 00:56:10.630 --> 00:56:13.070 treated, that gives me kind of almost an anger 00:56:13.070 --> 00:56:15.929 of how they've been left like that as though 00:56:15.929 --> 00:56:19.250 they're disposable people. And so I approach 00:56:19.250 --> 00:56:22.670 those scenes from that perspective of almost 00:56:22.670 --> 00:56:28.610 being, no, I want to recover those people because 00:56:28.610 --> 00:56:30.989 they deserve better than how they've been, you 00:56:30.989 --> 00:56:33.210 know, treated and how they've been left. But 00:56:33.210 --> 00:56:36.179 when I go to a fire scene, you're seeing the 00:56:36.179 --> 00:56:39.460 last moments of someone's life, right? And that's 00:56:39.460 --> 00:56:42.840 a different feel because this isn't how, you 00:56:42.840 --> 00:56:46.059 know, somebody disposed of them, I guess, unless 00:56:46.059 --> 00:56:47.920 it's an arson and then it's a bit more of a crossover, 00:56:48.039 --> 00:56:50.800 but it's sort of them in those last moments. 00:56:50.800 --> 00:56:53.239 And those last moments can be really, really 00:56:53.239 --> 00:56:59.449 sad and terrifying when you see. And the cases, 00:56:59.510 --> 00:57:01.409 you know, where people are so close to escaping 00:57:01.409 --> 00:57:03.969 from the fires are heartbreaking. When they're 00:57:03.969 --> 00:57:07.710 at the door, all they needed was less than a 00:57:07.710 --> 00:57:09.250 minute more and they would have been out and 00:57:09.250 --> 00:57:12.710 alive, right? And those ones are heartbreaking. 00:57:12.909 --> 00:57:15.650 So there are some that are emotionally more, 00:57:15.730 --> 00:57:20.750 I think, challenging. And of course, ones involving 00:57:20.750 --> 00:57:24.800 kids are that much more... challenging especially 00:57:24.800 --> 00:57:27.500 since I had my own kids that that changes things 00:57:27.500 --> 00:57:31.260 I think sometimes that you feel it more but but 00:57:31.260 --> 00:57:35.179 all the scenes to me are really interesting for 00:57:35.179 --> 00:57:37.139 their own way there's always some new challenge 00:57:37.139 --> 00:57:39.599 right whether it's having to be roped in and 00:57:39.599 --> 00:57:42.400 going down a really steep ravine or crawling 00:57:42.400 --> 00:57:45.539 underneath the crawl space and you know just 00:57:45.539 --> 00:57:46.860 trying to figure out how you're going to get 00:57:46.860 --> 00:57:50.059 into some place and out of that place again and 00:57:50.059 --> 00:57:52.880 all of these things make it different and interesting 00:57:52.880 --> 00:57:57.260 and challenging my problem with fire scenes is 00:57:57.260 --> 00:57:59.980 the ones I've always worked with you it's always 00:57:59.980 --> 00:58:05.440 negative 19 degrees celsius yeah I'm not made 00:58:05.440 --> 00:58:09.599 for for I've 10 years in Ontario I was never 00:58:09.599 --> 00:58:15.199 made for Ontario winter yeah the ones where they're 00:58:15.199 --> 00:58:17.179 frozen to the ground and you actually have to 00:58:17.179 --> 00:58:20.860 heat up the space before you can remove them 00:58:20.860 --> 00:58:24.500 from the snow and the ice adds that extra layer 00:58:24.500 --> 00:58:30.019 of challenge. And I can imagine that coming from 00:58:30.019 --> 00:58:34.280 the South, it's not a pleasant thing to be out 00:58:34.280 --> 00:58:42.940 there at minus 20, minus 30. Well, Dr. Rogers, 00:58:43.059 --> 00:58:45.380 I want to thank you so much for joining us here 00:58:45.380 --> 00:58:48.579 this evening. It's been an absolute pleasure. 00:58:49.920 --> 00:58:52.699 And I want to thank all of you for joining us 00:58:52.699 --> 00:58:57.079 as well on this episode of The Bone Club. And 00:58:57.079 --> 00:59:01.440 we'll be here in a couple weeks with a new episode. 00:59:02.139 --> 00:59:06.179 Until then, have a very pleasant week. Have a 00:59:06.179 --> 00:59:11.059 very pleasant couple weeks. And we'll see you 00:59:11.059 --> 00:59:18.760 in time. Goodbye. Thank you. Hello, friends. 00:59:18.860 --> 00:59:21.179 We here at the Bone Club understand how difficult 00:59:21.179 --> 00:59:23.420 it is for students to break into the field of 00:59:23.420 --> 00:59:26.320 forensic anthropology. To help with that cause, 00:59:26.519 --> 00:59:29.559 we have decided to monetize in a way by setting 00:59:29.559 --> 00:59:32.960 up an account with Patreon. All proceeds will 00:59:32.960 --> 00:59:35.139 be donated to the anthropology section of the 00:59:35.139 --> 00:59:37.840 American Academy of Forensic Sciences to help 00:59:37.840 --> 00:59:40.639 alleviate the cost of attending an annual scientific 00:59:40.639 --> 00:59:45.420 conference for students. If you can, we have 00:59:45.420 --> 00:59:48.659 set up four membership tiers with patreon .com 00:59:48.659 --> 00:59:52.820 slash the bone club that range from $3 a month 00:59:52.820 --> 00:59:57.719 to our patrons of the bones at $15 a month. We 00:59:57.719 --> 01:00:01.019 hope some of you can join us in this worthy endeavor 01:00:01.019 --> 01:00:04.239 of breaking down the barrier of cost that keeps 01:00:04.239 --> 01:00:06.719 many students away from these important conferences. 01:00:07.219 --> 01:00:11.440 So if you can, please join us at patreon .com. 01:00:11.840 --> 01:00:17.659 Thank you, and may your skeletons always be complete.