Unit 4 Case Studies

Case Studies:

• Body Farm
• Bun Chee Nyhuis "The Talking Skull"
• Ken and Barbie Killers (Paul Bernaro and Karla Homolka)
• Ted Bundy

Body Farm

Bill Bass is a forensic anthropologist who has assisted law enforcement with hundreds of cases. He established the world’s first and only laboratory devoted to the study of human decomposition at the University of Tennessee’s Anthropology Research Facility. It is known as “the body farm. The nickname of a two-and-a-half-acre research facility in Tennessee developed in 1980 by Bill Bass where bodies are placed in various conditions and allowed to decompose. Its main purpose is to observe and understand the processes and timetable of postmortem decay. Over the years it has helped to improve the ability to determine "time since death" in murder cases.

Bun Chee Nyhuis "The Talking Skull"

In 1987, a human skull and some bones were discovered at a Boy Scout Camp near Farmington, Missouri. A facial reconstruction aided the investigators in this case. Once the victim was identified as Bun Chee Nyhuis, her husband Richard H. Nyhuis, was no longer just a person of interest.

Ken and Barbie Killers (Paul Bernaro and Karla Homolka)

Ted Bundy

Bundy had bitten one of his murder victims—a woman in a Florida sorority house— multiple times and left behind some unusual forensic evidence: the distinct imprints of his teeth. Bundy's bite marks revealed some identifying characteristics: The set of teeth that created them had a chipped left incisor with three peaks and distinctly crooked bottom teeth. This perfectly described Bundy’s teeth. The prosecution used wax molds of Bundy’s bite and photographs of the prints on the corpse to help make their case. They also compared a large photo of Bundy’s bite impressions to the marks photographed on the body. When one was placed on top of the other, they matched. According to these experts and their visual supporting evidence, both were virtually identical.