Robin Barefield's Blog, page 6

True Crime Podcasts

In my last post, I announced the premiere of my true crime podcast titled, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier. One of the reasons I started a true crime podcast is because I am a fan of murder and mystery podcasts, so this week, I thought I’d tell you about some of my favorites and how they inspired me to begin my own podcast.

True crime podcasts take a variety of formats from a sleek sound production including interviews with those who had firsthand knowledge of the crime to dramatic recreations of events to a simple retelling of the facts of the crime. Some crime podcasts are seasonal with each season devoted to a particular murder or murderer. In these podcasts, the host breaks down the crime and the investigation. Other murder podcasts take an unsolved murder and attempt to solve it over the course of the season. Still, others involve a group of law enforcement experts discussing the pros and cons of the investigation of the crime.

The true crime genre is popular across all media formats.
Take a look at the many true crime TV shows, including Dateline and 48 Hours.
True crime books are immensely popular. I write a true crime newsletter, and
you’ll find several true crime magazines at the newsstand. With its
overwhelming popularity, it is no surprise true crime is also a major theme for
podcasts.

I have not yet listened to a seasonal podcast devoted to a deep dive into one crime or one criminal, but several stand out in the rankings, including Someone Knows Something, Up and Vanished, and Accused.

If you like humor with your murder, check out White Wine True Crime or My Favorite Murder.

My favorite true crime podcasts are Sword and Scale, Criminal, Generation Why, True Crime Historian, and Casefile True Crime.

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Sword and Scale is not for the squeamish. The polished, well-researched podcast takes a hard look at the most gruesome crimes.

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Criminal simply does a great job of reporting well-researched crimes in a straight-forward manner.

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Generation Why involves two hosts named Aaron and Justin who tell the listener the facts of a crime in a conversational manner. This is another podcast where a great deal of research is put into each episode.

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True Crime Historian covers crimes from the past, and the listener not only learns about the crime but also learns a little history in the process.

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Casefile True Crime is an addiction with its stellar narration and sleek production. You won’t be able to stop listening.

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In the realm of “Mystery,” I highly recommend the podcast Lore. Lore looks at the creepy scary folklore legends of history to determine if there is any truth to these tales we first heard while sitting around the campfire. As the Lore website says, “Because sometimes the truth is more frightening than fiction.”

There are many more, great true crime and mystery podcasts out there, and once you hear one, you will want to hear them all. Try out the ones I’ve suggested, and while you’re at it, I hope you will give my podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier a listen.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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The post True Crime Podcasts appeared first on Robin Barefield.

Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier

I am excited this week to announce my new podcast: Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier. As many of you know, I have been writing a mystery newsletter for the past three years about murder and mysterious disappearances in Alaska. A few of my newsletter subscribers encouraged me to start a podcast, and while I initially laughed at the idea, the seed took root and began to grow no matter how hard I tried to stomp on it.

At first, I didn’t believe I could upload a podcast with our
slow satellite internet, but once I learned I could upload from the middle of
the wilderness, I began to research what was involved in producing a podcast.
Would it be expensive? Was the technology learning-curve too steep, and were my
vocal skills up to the challenge?

I read everything I could find about starting a podcast, I
listened to podcasts about podcasting, and I joined podcast support groups
where I could ask questions. I spent less than $200 on a microphone and other
necessary gear, bought audio editing software for another $100, and I signed up
for a site to host my podcast.

Everything I am learning from this venture is new and challenging, and I love it all so far. I carefully chose a good microphone and headset and bought reasonably priced audio editing software that has proven to be easy to use. I also like the Hindenburg Journalist software because if I decide to take my editing to the next level, I can easily upgrade to a pro version. I chose Blubrry.com to host my podcast, mainly because it offers a free website for my podcast and all the tools I needed to learn how to publish the podcast and upload it to Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, and other platforms.

Do I know what I am doing yet as a podcaster? Nope, not even
close, but I am trying not to be hard on myself. My podcast is far from
perfect, but I have plenty of room to grow and improve.

The big question is, why do I want to spend money and
countless hours I don’t have to tackle yet another project? The answer to this
question is simple. I hope to introduce myself and my writing to more people.
If they like my podcast, perhaps they will want to sign up for my newsletter
and read my books. Podcasting is an experiment for me, and I will try it for
several months. If I find my podcast requires too much time with too few
payoffs, I will quietly back away from the microphone and return to what works.

The downside to starting a podcast is time. As you know, there are only so many hours in the day, and I do have a hectic regular job. If I want to podcast, something must give, and unfortunately, for now, I have decided to cut back on my blog posts. Right now, I write one post a week, so for the next few weeks, I plan to scale back to two posts a month, and I will alternate weekly between a podcast and a post. Once I streamline my podcast editing, perhaps I will have time to return to a weekly post schedule.

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I’ve published my first podcast episode, and you can find it here. I’m working on my second episode, and it will be available in a few days. If you enjoy my podcast, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave a comment so that other listeners can find me. If you would like to listen to all my podcast episodes, don’t forget to subscribe.

Please let me know what you think of my podcast.  A few of my blog readers have been with me since I started this blog, and I appreciate you and value your opinions! Thank you for your support!

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska, and sign up for her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.

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Commercial Herring Fishery in Alaska

Herring are valuable fish to commercial fishermen, and in
Alaska, herring are mainly harvested for their eggs which are shipped to Japan.

In last week’s post, I wrote about the biology and life history of the Pacific herring, and I explained how important herring are to the diets of many birds, fish, and marine mammals, but herring is also a valuable commodity to humans. For hundreds of years, Alaska native populations have conducted subsistence fisheries for herring. In the spring, villagers from coastal communities harvested herring eggs on kelp or hemlock boughs, and traditional dried herring is still an important resource in Bering Sea villages near Nelson Island where salmon is not readily available.

The commercial herring fishery in Alaska began in 1878 when
30,000 lbs. were caught for human consumption. Early Alaskan settlers preserved
herring by salting the fish and storing it in large, wooden barrels. Salted and
pickled herring production peaked after WWI when 28 million pounds (12,700 mt)
were produced annually.

Reduction fisheries, which are the production of fish oil
and fish meal from ground-up fish, began in Southeast Alaska in Chatham
Straight in 1882. Reduced herring became more popular in the 1920s, and
reduction plants sprang up from Craig to Kodiak in areas with large herring
stocks. Harvests during the 1920s and 1930s reached 250 million pounds (113,400
mt) per year, and herring stocks declined in response to this unsustainable
harvest. During the 1950s, the low cost of reduced Peruvian anchovies caused
the reduction market in Alaska to collapse, and the last herring reduction plant
in Alaska closed in 1966.

The Alaska sac roe fishery for herring began in the 1970s
when the demand for imported herring eggs in Japan increased after Japan’s
herring fishery declined. The sac roe fishery targets female herring just
before they spawn. Pre-spawn egg sacs are removed from the female herring and
shipped to Asia where they are a highly prized delicacy called kazunoko. Most
herring for this fishery are caught by purse seining with a smaller percentage
caught by gill netting. Unlike any other fishery in Alaska, managers carefully
monitor the quality of the herring during the fishery to obtain the highest-value
product possible. Technicians periodically test the condition of the female
herring as their eggs ripen, and fishery managers use this information to
carefully time the opening of the fishery to within days or even hours before
the females are ready to release their eggs. This scrutiny ensures the eggs are
ripe and prime for the Japanese market.

Most herring fisheries in Alaska are regulated as management
units or regulatory stocks, and these stocks are very specific, often to small
geographical areas. While managers might open herring fishing in one bay, the fishery
could be closed in an adjacent bay because the herring return to spawn in the
second bay the previous year did not meet sustainable levels. The herring sac
roe fishery is competitive and intense. Fishery managers often open fishing at
noon and close it a few hours later when fishermen have reached the quota for
the area. Herring purse seiners work together in groups called combines and
hire spotter planes to search for large schools of herring. The purse seine
boats stand by near a school of herring until managers declare the fishery open,
and then they quickly deploy their nets to scoop up the fish.

Since fishermen are only after the eggs in a sac roe
fishery, the carcasses of the females and males caught in the nets are either
processed for fishmeal or are sold for bait to commercial and sport anglers.
There also is still a smaller food and bait fishery for herring.

In addition to the sac roe fishery, there is another type of commercial harvest for herring eggs called a spawn-on-kelp harvest using floating pens. Herring are caught with purse seines and then confined in floating pens containing kelp. When the herring spawn, the eggs attach to the kelp and are harvested. The eggs from this type of fishery sell for a very high value.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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The post Commercial Herring Fishery in Alaska appeared first on Robin Barefield.

Pacific Herring (Clupea pallasii)

Last week, I mentioned how the Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) had returned to Uyak Bay on Kodiak Island this spring in such large numbers, even bears recently out of hibernation noticed and were feeding on them in the shallow estuaries where they spawn. Pacific herring are an essential food source for many animals living in or near the North Pacific, including  birds such as cormorants, murres, auklets, puffins, and bald eagles; fish, such as salmon, halibut, cod, and pollock, and marine mammals, including harbor seals, Steller Sea Lions, fin whales, humpback whales, and orcas. When a pursuing predator forces a school of herring to the surface, seagulls take advantage of the situation and can often be spotted noisily diving and feeding on the fish. Herring are loaded with nutritious oil and nutrients and are an important forage fish for many species.

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A herring has a blue-green upper body, silvery sides, and large eyes. Its body is laterally compressed with large scales, protruding in a serrated fashion. It has no scales on its head or gills. A herring has a deeply forked tail, a single dorsal fin located mid-body, and no adipose fin. Pacific herring can grow to 18 inches (45.7 cm) in length, but they are usually smaller than 9 inches (22.9 cm).

Pacific herring live throughout the coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean. In the eastern North Pacific, they range from Baja California north to the Beaufort Sea, and in the western North Pacific, they can be found in the western Bering Sea to Kamchatka, in the Okhotsk Sea and around Hokkaido, Japan southeast to the Yellow Sea.

[Pacific herring reach sexual maturity when they are three to four years old, and they spawn each year after reaching sexual maturity. Spawning occurs in the spring in shallow nearshore areas in intertidal and subtidal zones. Females release eggs at the same time males release sperm into the water, and the eggs and sperm mix, fertilizing the eggs. A single female can lay 20,000 eggs.

[image error]Herring Spawning Biomass

Spawning is precise, and while the trigger is not well understood, researchers suggest the male initiates the process by releasing milt containing a pheromone which stimulates females to release eggs. The process seems to be synchronized, and an entire school spawns in a period of a few hours, producing an egg density of up to  6,000,000 eggs per square yard (square meter). The fertilized eggs then attach to vegetation such as eelgrass or kelp or to the bottom. Eggs hatch two weeks after they are fertilized, and the larvae drift in the ocean currents. As they grow, juvenile herring stay in sheltered bays until autumn and then move into deeper water where they spend the next two to three years. Juveniles remain separate from the adult population. Biologists estimate only one herring per ten thousand eggs reaches adulthood.

Juvenile herring feed on phytoplankton and zooplankton, and adults also eat bigger crustaceans and small fish. Pacific herring travel in large schools. They migrate inshore to the heads of shallow coves and bays to spawn and then offshore to feed. They also migrate vertically in response to their prey, remaining near the bottom during the day and rising toward the top of the water column at night.

Herring are susceptible to environmental changes. Since they depend on shallow, inshore habitats to reproduce, they are affected by storms, pollution, and warming water temperatures. The Pacific herring population in Prince William Sound collapsed in 1993, four years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and it has still not recovered.[

The biggest threat to Pacific herring is a loss of their spawning grounds. Spawning habitat can be degraded or destroyed by construction, dredging, log storage, oil spills or other pollution, and by global warming.[ If Pacific herring populations crash, their loss will affect the many species of fish, birds, and marine mammals which depend on them for food.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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The post Pacific Herring (Clupea pallasii) appeared first on Robin Barefield.

Spring on Kodiak Island

I love
spring. It is my favorite season. As winter loosens its grip and the vegetation
begins to grow again, the world seems to return to life. Foxes scream in the
middle of the night in search of new mates; does arrive in our yard with their
wobbly, newborn fawns; eagles soar in mating spirals and begin remodeling their
nests for the arrival of their chicks; and bears leave their dens in search of
food after a long winter of fasting.

Spring
always brings unexpected joys, and no two springs are alike. This year, we have
watched an abundance of herring enter Uyak Bay to spawn. Often when large
schools of herring return, we see increased whale, seal, and sea lion activity
in the bay, but this year we’ve observed something different and exciting. Bears
are feeding on the herring in the tidal flats at the head of Uyak Bay where the
herring spawn. While in the summer months, bears typically catch and eat salmon
in this same area, they don’t usually congregate to feed on herring. Herring
are rich, oily fish loaded with nutritional value, and they provide a great
supplement to a bear’s diet.

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     Bears’ stomachs contract during
hibernation, and when they first leave their dens, their appetites are
suppressed, and they eat little, concentrating on emerging plants and their
roots.  As spring progresses, bears can
be seen feeding in grassy meadows and look much like grazing cattle with their
heads bent to the earth.  We don’t
usually see bears feeding on fish until summer when they chase and catch
salmon, but bears are opportunistic feeders, and since the herring are here
now, bears are taking advantage of their abundance.

Herring are
smaller than salmon, making them more difficult for a bear to catch. The
herring swim into the eelgrass in the tidal areas at the head of Uyak Bay where
they lay their eggs. When the tide ebbs, the fish temporarily become stranded
in the shallow tidal pools, and bears can chase down and pounce on the fish.

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As with
salmon fishing, older bears are better than younger bears at landing herring.
Fishing is a skill bears learn with much
practice over time, so young bears are often clumsy fishermen.  A sub-adult bear might gallop back and forth
for thirty minutes without successfully landing a fish, while an older bear
walks deliberately through the water and pounces with little effort on a
passing herring.  Each bear develops his
own, unique fishing technique.   

In the long
run, this early appetizer of herring probably will make little difference to
the overall health of the bears, but if Kodiak has a poor berry crop and a poor
salmon run, this early addition of herring could sustain the bears until the
salmon arrive.

Spring is only beginning here on Kodiak Island, and I can’t wait to see what other surprises the season has in store for us.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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The post Spring on Kodiak Island appeared first on Robin Barefield.

Henry Aurman

Last week, I posted about cannibalism
and mentioned Henry Aurman, a character in my upcoming novel. The following
excerpt from Karluk Bones describes
how my protagonist, Jane Marcus, learns about Henry Aurman.

In my novel, Jane and her friends discover bones in the woods near Karluk Lake on Kodiak Island. Two weeks ago, I posted an excerpt from the novel where an anthropology student explains to Jane, she believes the bones are those of an individual who died between thirty and fifty years ago. Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Dan Patterson puts Jane in touch with a trooper who worked on Kodiak during the 1970s and 80s. The following is the conversation Jane has with retired Sergeant Sid Beatty from the Alaska State Troopers. Jane and Sid have just met, and the conversation takes place on Sid’s sailboat where he lives.

Karluk Bones

“Tell me about the bones,” Sid
said.

Now I was on firmer ground, and I
felt myself relax. I began with the fire at Karluk Lake, and our discovery of the bones on the charred ground. I then
moved on to describe what Ying had learned from studying the bones.

“Let me make sure I understand,”
Sid said. “The anthropologist thinks the individual was between 25 and 30-years
old when he died and estimates the bones have been at Karluk Lake between
thirty and fifty years.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know it’s a
wide time range, but does anything come to mind? Do you remember any unsolved
cases from the 70s or 80s?”

Sid sat back and stared at the
ceiling. “I worked three unsolved missing-persons cases during my tenure. They
were all young women, and two of them were friends who disappeared on the same
night.” He shook his head. “We never found a trace, and to this day, I have no
idea what happened to them.” He stared
off into space for a while. “But, I don’t remember any unsolved cases involving
young men.”

I smiled. “Thanks for trying,” I
said. “Do you think it would do me any good to go through old case files?”

“Wait a minute,” Beatty said.
“How could I forget Henry? I did have an unsolved missing male.”

“And his name was Henry?”

“No, no,” Sid said. ‘This is a wild story. It’s possible Henry could be
tied to your bones, but you’d never prove it.” Sid took a sip of his coffee. “From
the late 60s through maybe 1981 or 1982, a crazy old guy lived and trapped near
Karluk Lake. He’d spend the entire winter out there by himself. Back in the 70s,
the deer population hadn’t yet spread to the south end of the island, so I
don’t know what he ate.” Sid chuckled and shook his head. “I do know some of
what he ate, but I’ll get to that part of the story in a minute. Henry trapped
beavers, foxes, and rabbits, so I assume he ate those. Anyway, he was a tough
old guy.”

I had no idea where Sid was
headed with this story, so I said nothing and waited for him to continue.

“The guy’s name was Henry Aurman,” Sid said.

“The Aurman from Aurman Plumbing
and Heating?” The store was a town landmark, and I’d been told it had survived
the “64 earthquake.”

“That’s right,” Sid said. “One of
Henry’s relatives started the store, but Henry had nothing to do with the
business. I think the store is still owned by an Aurman, probably Henry’s great niece or nephew.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean
to interrupt.”

“As far as I know, Henry never
married, and he was crazy, or at the very least, eccentric. He claimed the
entire region around Karluk Lake belonged to him.”

“That’s a big area,” I said.

Sid laughed. “Yes, it is. The
troopers spent a great deal of time dealing with Henry because anytime a
hunter, fisherman, or camper set up a tent near the lake, Henry threatened the visitors
and told them they did not have his permission to camp on his land. He’d tell
them he’d kill them if they didn’t leave. We threw him in jail numerous times
for harassment, but he’d return to Karluk and threaten the next person who
dared walk near ‘his’ lake.”

My spine tingled. Did Henry Aurman kill the man whose bones we
found? “Did he ever kill any campers?” I asked.

“Not to my knowledge,” Sid said,
“but I always expected one of his confrontations to end in violence with either
him or a camper dead. I am certain, though, that Henry murdered at least three
men, but they weren’t campers; they were his trapping partners.”

“What do you mean?”

“Around 1977 or 1978, you’d have
to check the file for the exact date, Henry was getting older and wanted help
with his winter trapping, so he ‘hired,’ to use the term loosely, a young man
to accompany him during the winter. I believe the deal was that the young guy
would help him trap, and Henry would give him a few hides to sell in payment
for his services. The young man was a drifter, looking to turn his life around,
and he wanted to learn how to trap, so he eagerly followed Henry to Karluk
Lake.”

“Did Henry have a house at the
lake?”

“He had a shack. It’s long gone
now, but it had heat. I think most nights he camped near his trapline, but he’d
return to the shack to resupply and work on his hides.”

“What happened?”

“In May, we received a call from
the young guy’s brother, and if his brother hadn’t called us, I never would
have known about the guy.” Sid paused, for another sip of coffee. “I don’t
remember the caller’s name, but he said his brother had phoned him in November
to tell him he’d quit drinking and was planning to spend the winter in the
Kodiak wilderness learning to trap from an
old man named Henry. He hadn’t heard from
his brother since. I didn’t know Aurman
had hired a partner for the winter, but he was the only Henry I knew who
trapped, so I flew out to Karluk and found Henry at his cabin.”

I sat back in my chair. “Was the
young man there?”

Sid shook his head. “Henry admitted
he’d hired the guy but said he’d left in mid-December, telling Henry he
couldn’t stand the cold and isolation any longer. Henry called him a wimp and
said he thought the guy missed his alcohol. Henry said he was happy to see him
leave.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. They were camped on a frozen lake in the middle
of the winter. “How did the guy leave?”

“Henry claimed the young man
planned to hike to the village of Karluk and catch their mail plane back to
Kodiak, but he never made it to Karluk, or at least, he never flew from Karluk
to Kodiak on the mail plane. They keep lists of their passengers, and he wasn’t
on any of the lists.”

“What did Henry say when you told
him his helper never arrived in Karluk?” I asked.

“He said he didn’t know what happened
to his trapping buddy, and we didn’t have enough evidence to charge Henry with
a crime. I suspected, though, either that Henry killed the guy, or the guy got
lost in the woods and froze to death.”

“Wouldn’t he just need to follow
the river from the lake to the village?”

“Yes, so I didn’t believe he got
lost.”

“You thought Henry murdered him.”
A chill ran through me. “Maybe these are his bones
I found,” I said.

“It’s possible, but this guy
wasn’t the only partner Henry lost.”

“Meaning?”

“Rumors floated hinting Henry
lost another partner the following year, but no one ever reported the man
missing, so the troopers were not involved,”
Sid said. “Guys who sign on to spend the winter in the wilderness with a crazy
trapper aren’t social beings, and they don’t usually have many resources. They’re
loners.”

“So you never talked to Henry
about this guy?”

“No, but two years later, around
1980 or 1981, Henry picked the wrong trapping buddy. When this man didn’t
return from his winter’s expedition, the phone at trooper headquarters rang for two months. We heard from his mother,
his two sisters, friends, an aunt or two, and even an employer who expected him
to return to his job in Salt Lake City after the end of his winter adventure.”

“What did Henry say when you
questioned him.”

“This is where the story gets
interesting,” Sid said. “I flew to Karluk Lake with two other troopers, and we
went to Henry’s little shack. He wasn’t there, so after we knocked on the door,
we entered the building.”

Sid sat back and regarded me. He
looked as if he’d just smelled something bad, or maybe he was trying to decide
if he should continue his story.

 “What did you find?” I finally asked.

Sid sighed. “We found bones and
scraps of meat as if an animal recently had been butchered. We saw jars of
canned meat lining the shelves of a makeshift cupboard in the corner of the
shack. At first, I thought the bones were bear
bones, but then I realized they were human.”

Sid waited while I processed his
words. “He killed and ate his trapping partners?” I stood as if trying to
distance myself from Sid and his horrible tale. I reigned in my urge to flee
and returned to my seat.

Sid nodded. “I’m sorry; I know
this is a terrible story. Imagine how we felt standing in that little shack,
realizing what we had found and then knowing Henry could return at any minute
and shoot us all. I immediately sent one of the troopers outside to stand guard so we wouldn’t be ambushed.”

This time, Sid drank a big gulp
of his cooling coffee. “Yes, the bones were human, and the nicely stacked jars
contained cooked and canned human meat.”

“Wow,” was the only thing I could think to say. Visions of stacked canning jars bearing human flesh flooded my head. I wondered if Henry had labeled the jars with his dead partners’ names, but I wisely pushed the question from my mind before I asked it.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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The post Henry Aurman appeared first on Robin Barefield.

Cannibalism

Little in our world is more repugnant and taboo than
cannibalism, the consumption of human flesh by other human beings. I assure you,
I have not taken a left turn into the dark side on this blog, but Henry Aurman,
one of the characters in my upcoming novel, Karluk
Bones, not only eats human flesh but also cans it, so he can enjoy it at a
later time. While writing about Henry, I became curious about incidents of cannibalism,
and was surprised and disturbed to find many more references to the practice than
I expected.

Why would a human eat the flesh of another human? Sometimes
the reason is practical and is something any of us might do if we found ourselves
in a similar circumstance. In other situations, an individual such as my fictional
Henry Aurman simply has no aversion to human flesh and considers it the same as
eating any other animal. Others believe consuming the flesh of another will
allow the consumer to capture his dinner’s spirit. Sickest of all are those who
are so twisted they gain sexual pleasure from murdering and eating their
victims. Let’s look at some examples.

Cannibalism for Survival




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Many reports exist of humans forced to ward off starvation
by eating the bodies of their recently deceased companions, but the case which intrigues
me most is the doomed Donner party during the winter of 1846-47. In May 1846,
the Donner and Reed families (87 men, women, and children) set out by wagon
train from Independence, Missouri headed for California. The group got a late
start, leaving them little room for error on a journey which generally took
four-to-six months under the best of conditions. Unfortunately, the leaders of
the group made several bad decisions and luck was not on their side. The group
reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains in late October 1946 and became stranded by
heavy snow during one of the worst winters the region has ever seen.

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By mid-December, the Donner party was nearly out of food,
and a few members of the group set out on foot in search of supplies and help
at Sutter’s Fort (now Sacramento). They made it to Sutter’s Fort, but due to
heavy snowfall, a relief party could not reach the remainder of the group until
the middle of February 1847. Only 48 of the original 87 members survived the
ordeal, and it didn’t take long after the party was rescued before rumors of
cannibalism among the snowbound pioneers circulated across the country. While the
settlers didn’t murder other members of the group and then eat them, they admitted
they ate some of their fellow travelers who died from starvation. While this
act might sound reprehensible, it’s something most of us probably would do if
we were starving to death.

Cannibalism to Absorb
Another’s Spirit



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Issei Sagawa, the son of wealthy Japanese parents, moved to
Paris in 1978 when he was 20-years-old to study at the Sorbonne. On June
11,1981, he invited classmate Renee Hartvelt to his home for dinner. Issei shot
Renee in the neck with a rifle and feasted on her body for two days.
Apparently, Issei admired Renee and hoped by eating her, he would absorb her
energy and replace his own inadequacies.

Issei was arrested by French authorities, but after he was declared
psychologically unfit to stand trial, he was sent back to Japan. Japanese
doctors found him sane, and Sagawa checked himself out of the hospital and
remains free in Japan to this day.

Cannibalism for
Sexual Pleasure



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There are unfortunately many examples of deviants who fall
within this category. Jeffrey Dahmer is the best known American serial
killer/cannibal. By 1991, Dahmer was sexually assaulting and murdering one
person a week until he was finally caught on July 22, 1991. After torturing his
victims, Dahmer eviscerated them and stored their body parts for later
consumption.

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Perhaps even more disturbing than Jeffrey Dahmer was Ukrainian
born Andrei Chikatilo who mutilated and sexually assaulted 52 women and
children between 1978 and 1990. After he was captured, he admitted to authorities
he enjoyed chewing on the extracted uteri of his female victims and the
testicles of his male victims.

Henry Aurman, the old trapper in my novel who murders and eats his trapping partners, never explains why he eats human flesh, but I think he considers humans an easy source of food. Henry is based on a real person. Next week I’ll post an excerpt about Henry from my upcoming novel, Karluk Bones.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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Skull and Bones at Karluk Lake

In my upcoming novel, Karluk Bones, my protagonist, Jane Marcus, and her friends stumble across a human skull and bones in the woods. Are the bones ancient or recent, and how did they end up in the middle of the wilderness? Jane contacts Alaska State Trooper Sergeant Dan Patterson, and he sends the bones to an anthropologist at the University of Alaska in Anchorage. The bones end up in the laboratory of a young graduate student named Ying Lee, and Patterson gives Jane permission to fly to Anchorage and learn what Ying has to say about the bones.

The following is an excerpt from Karluk Bones

“Come in,” a female voice called.
A young woman met me inside the door and introduced herself as Ying Lee. Ying
had short, black hair, big blue eyes, and creamy white skin. She motioned for
me to follow her, and her petite frame bounced with energy as she led me down
the hall and into a small laboratory. My bones, now scrubbed clean, held center
stage on the work table in the middle of the room.

Ying wasted no time with small
talk. She walked to the table and held up a portion of the long leg bone we had
found. The rest of the bone rested on the table. For some reason, Ying, or one
of her associates had sliced the bone into two pieces. Her blue eyes blazed
with intelligence and excitement. Her enthusiasm infected me, and I walked to
the other side of the table and focused on her.

Ying held the bone with both
hands. “We’re very fortunate to have a femur,” she said, “because the femur
offers an easy estimation of height. All I needed to do was measure the bone
and then apply a simple formula to obtain an estimate of the individual’s
height.”

“And he was tall?” I asked

“Well, yes, he was a little above
average height – about six feet tall.” Ying said.

“So, we know he was male from his
height?” I asked

“I would guess the individual was
male from his height, but you also found the pelvis, and I can confirm he was a
male from the pelvis.”

“Next, I set out to determine the
age of the individual when he died. Luckily, I had the skull to examine.” She
pointed to the skull on the table, and I noticed she had glued several of the
miscellaneous bone fragments we’d gathered to the skull. It still wasn’t
complete, but she had pieced much of it together.

“You see here,” Ying said.
Pointing at an area she had reconstructed
on the top of the skull, “these lines are called cranial sutures. The bones
that enclose the brain grow together during childhood. As a person ages, these
sutures gradually fade. This fading, or remodeling, varies among individuals, but
some sutures close at a consistent age in most individuals.” Ying pointed to
the back of the skull and ran her finger along a faint line. “This is called the lamboid suture. It generally
begins to close at age 21. The closing accelerates at age 26, and the suture is
completely closed between age 30 and 40. You can see the suture on this skull is nearly, but not
completely closed.”

“So, how old do you estimate he was?”
I asked.

“I’d say between 25 and 30 years old,”
Ying looked up from the bones and met my gaze. “This is only my estimate,
though. I couldn’t swear to it in a court of law, but I think this individual
was between 25 and 30 years old when he died.”

“I understand,” I said. “Your estimate
gives me somewhere to start. I appreciate it.”

A quick smile passed over Ling’s thin
lips, but then she was all business again. “Again, by looking at his skull, I
determined this individual descended from European ancestry. There’s not much
left of the nasal bones, but the narrow face leads me to believe with little
doubt this skull did not come from a Native Alaskan individual.”

“Okay,” I said. I wanted to make sure
I’d understood everything Ying had told me. “We have a fairly tall Caucasian
man in his late twenties.”

Ying wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like
the term Caucasian, because race tags can be misleading. All I can really tell
you is his ancestors were most likely from Europe.”

I nodded and forced myself to remain
silent. I wanted to blurt out my questions. How
long ago did he die, and what killed him? But I knew how much I hated to be
interrupted while explaining my research
to someone, so I let Ying explain these bones to me in her own style and at her
own pace.

She stared at me for several moments
as if expecting me to question her, but then she continued. “The question is how
and when did this individual die?”

I nodded and watched her expectantly.

Ying pointed to the front of the
skull. “I think I know how, but the when part is a big guess.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“My professor and I are fairly certain
this man died from a gunshot wound to the top of the head. I pieced as much of
the skull together as I could, and you can see this jagged, roughly round hole
in the top of the skull.”

“You’re sure it’s a bullet hole?”

She smiled. “I’m not certain of
anything, but I’ve compared this hole to dozens of known bullet holes in
skulls, and it is similar.”

“Is there any way to determine what
gauge bullet caused the hole?” I asked.

Ying laughed. “If the particular type
of bullet becomes important, you might be able to run down an expert who’d be
willing to give it a shot.” She stopped and laughed at her unintended pun.
“This is not my area of expertise, but I do think it is a bullet hole.”

“It seems like a weird place to shoot
yourself,” I said.

Ying looked at me sharply. “Do you
have reason to believe this person committed suicide?”

“No, I’m just thinking out loud,” I said

“It’s just that . . .” Ying shook her
head.

“Just what?” I asked.

“My Ph.D.
thesis is linked to studying nutrition in ancient populations. In particular,
I’m studying nutrition in communities of Inupiat people. Most of the bones I’m looking at are between 150 and 300
years old. You are a biologist, so as I’m sure you know, teeth and bones
contain a protein called collagen. Collagen absorbs chemicals such as calcium,
carbon, nitrogen, and strontium from the food an individual eats. Different
types of food contain these elements in different ratios, and from studying
fossilized bones and teeth, I am attempting to understand the diets of various
populations of Inupiat people. Were they healthy? Did they face periods of
malnutrition? That sort of thing.”

I nodded. “Your work sounds
interesting.” Her research did sound interesting, but I had no idea why she was
telling me about it in relation to these
bones.

She seemed to read my mind. “When I
received permission to study these bones,” she gestured to the bones on the
table in front of her, “I thought it would be interesting to see how much the
diet of this guy differed from my Inupiat bones.” She shrugged. “I know it has
nothing to do with your case, or at least I didn’t think it did until I started analyzing the bones.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I still
couldn’t guess where she was going with this.

“This guy,” she put her hand on the
femur, “was starving to death. If he didn’t have a bullet hole in his head, I’d
say he did starve to death. I wondered if he shot himself to end his suffering,
but you’re right, it’s a strange angle for a self-inflicted gunshot wound.” She
shook her head. “It would be possible, though, especially if he used a rifle.”
She held an imaginary rifle in front of her, pointed at her head.

“Wait a minute,” I said, “back up. You
think this guy was starving to death?”

“That’s one of the few things I can
say with any certainty about this individual,” Ying said. “His bone mineral
density is extremely low. He was emaciated when he died. In fact, his bones are
the most emaciated bones I’ve studied.”

“Interesting,” I said. “I wonder what
happened to him?”

Ying studied me, her eyes ablaze.
“Isn’t it fascinating? I love learning about past civilizations and imaging what the people’s lives were like. I
feel like a detective sifting through the debris and trying to find the important
evidence.”

I smiled at this brilliant young woman
and was thankful my bones ended up in her laboratory. “When did he die?” I
asked. “How long have his bones been at Karluk Lake?”

Ying shoulders dropped, and the fire
in her eyes died. “That’s the million-dollar question. It’s very difficult to
estimate the time since death from skeletal remains. I know he’s not ancient,
but there’s little difference between five-year-old
and ten-year-old bones.”

“But you told Sergeant Patterson you
thought these bones were between thirty and fifty years old.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t make that
estimate,” Ying said. “When these bones first arrived, we had a professor here
who was visiting from UC Davis, and her field of interest is studying bone
chemistry to estimate the time since death. She looks at the citrate content in
the bones. She took two slices of the femur back to California with her, and
she arrived at the timeframe of thirty to fifty years, but she stressed to us,
and I told Sergeant Patterson the timeframe was only her best guess.”

I smiled at Ying and held out my hand.
She took it, and we shook. “I appreciate
all you’ve done. I don’t know what it means yet, but I hope to figure it out
and maybe even learn who this individual was.”

“If you come up with a possible identification and can find
relatives, we can attempt to extract DNA from the bones and see if there’s a
match.” Ying said. “We might even be able to tap into a public DNA database.”

“Thanks,
I’ll keep that in mind. I hope I can figure out who you have on your table.”

I will let you know when Karluk Bones is available. Meanwhile, be sure to sign up below for my free Mystery Newsletter.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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The post Skull and Bones at Karluk Lake appeared first on Robin Barefield.

You Are What You Eat: Bones Offer an Encyclopedia of Diet, Disease, and Trauma

What types of food did this individual eat, and did she die from a disease or trauma? Skeletal remains offer anthropologists a view into not only how a person died but also how they lived. As science and technology advance, we have more tools at our disposal to examine human remains and learn about individuals, societies, and cultures. Over the last few weeks, I’ve discussed what an anthropologist can learn from skeletal remains, including whether the skeleton is male or female, the race and height of the individual, and the age of the victim when he or she died. This week we will consider how this person lived and died.

Recent excavations at the Jamestown colony in Virginia gave anthropologists a glimpse into the harsh winter of 1609-1610 when the colony ran out of food, and only sixty out of five-hundred colonists survived. Gravediggers couldn’t keep up with the ever-growing pile of bodies and ended up placing two or three at a time in a single grave. Skeletal remains provided evidence of starvation, and tool marks found on some skeletons suggested other colonists had carved and eaten their flesh. While stories passed down through the ages from Jamestown have mentioned incidents of cannibalism, the skeletal remains produced the first confirmation.

Diet

Isotope Analysis has given us some of the most interesting
information about what our ancestors ate and how they moved in relation to their resources. Most people
know about radiocarbon dating or C-14 analysis. C-14 is an unstable isotope of
carbon, and it deteriorates at a known, predictable rate. By measuring the amount of C-14 in old bones, scientists can
estimate the age of the bones.

In contrast to C-14, Carbon-13, Nitrogen-15, Oxygen-18,
Strontium-86, and Strontium-87 are all stable isotopes, and they do not decay
over time but remain constant. The ratios of these isotopes vary in different
foods and in the environment, and
depending upon what we eat and where we live, our bones incorporate these
compounds in different amounts and form a record of our lives. Scientists call
this our isotopic signature. Isotopic signatures offer archaeologists a way to learn
about the environment at a particular
time and place and to understand the factors that influenced the way a community
developed. A direct relationship exists between the diet of an individual and
the isotopic signature in his bone collagen. Did he eat grasses, fruits, meat,
or fish and shellfish?

The study of isotopes also provides researchers with information about mobility and migration of past cultures and individuals. Humans move for many reasons, including the search for more plentiful food, to find a suitable mate, for warfare, and for trade. Strontium and Oxygen isotopes are used to reconstruct past movements of an individual. If a person lived his life in the general area where he died, then the isotopes in his bone collagen will match the isotopes in the environment where he was found. Local isotopes are measured from the substrate, groundwater, and precipitation of a place. If his bone and teeth enamel isotopes differ from the local environmental isotopes, then the archaeologist knows the individual traveled to this region from somewhere else.

Disease

Bones display evidence of many diseases and trauma. Healed
fractures, even ones which are several years old, often leave marks on bones. In
osteoarthritis, the bones rub together, creating eroded and polished bones.
Rheumatoid arthritis causes swollen joints which can push against and deform
bones. Ankylosing spondylitis produces an inflamed spine which leaves
characteristic markers on the vertebrae. Gout causes increased uric acid in the
blood which can crystallize in the joints and cause an erosion of the joint
surfaces. Cancers can affect a skeleton in two ways. Cancers in the soft tissue
next to a bone create pressure on the bone, often causing lesions or holes in
the bone. Cancers producing tumors directly in the bones cause skeletal changes
which can be seen long after the soft tissue has decomposed.

Infectious diseases can also leave a trace on bones. Tuberculosis
causes lesions in the bones, especially the ribs, spine, and pelvic bones.
Syphilis, a sexually transmitted bacterial
disease, forms degenerative pits on the surface of the bone and is especially
severe on the forehead, nose, and shin.

As DNA research progresses and Methods of DNA sequencing
become more affordable, we will learn much more about the diseases an
individual suffered from studying his bones. Chromosomal abnormalities have
been identified in DNA extracted in human bones 7400 years old, but scientists
believe non-human DNA will be the most useful in identifying the importance of
diseases such as malaria, cholera, and the plague in ancient communities.

Malnutrition and Starvation

Malnutrition and starvation lead
to decreased bone mineral density. Long term malnutrition causes stunted growth
and an increased risk of bone fractures. Oddly, bone marrow adipose tissue
(BMAT), a type of fat, increases during starvation while other types of adipose
tissue decrease. Scientists are uncertain why BMAT increases when a person is
starving to death, but they believe BMAT is either a passive filler occupying
spaces left by dying bone cells, a consequence of suppressed bone formation, or
an adaptation for surviving starvation.

Next week, I will post an excerpt from my upcoming novel, Karluk Bones, and you can read how a young anthropology student explains her analysis of human bones found near Karluk Lake on Kodiak Island. 

Be sure to sign up for my free mystery newsletter, and I’ll see you back here next week.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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The post You Are What You Eat: Bones Offer an Encyclopedia of Diet, Disease, and Trauma appeared first on Robin Barefield.

Age of Skeletal Remains

Age is critical information when attempting to identify
skeletal remains. How old was the individual when he died, and how long has he
been dead?

Two weeks ago, I discussed how a forensic anthropologist determines gender from skeletal remains, and last week, I described how an anthropologist can deduce race and height from an examination of human bones.  This week’s post covers ways a forensic anthropologist pins down age. When we talk about age in relation to bones, we must consider two separate issues. First, how old was this individual when he died, and second, how long ago did he die? If you are an investigator trying to determine the identity of skeletal remains, then the answers to both questions will aid you in your investigation.

How old was this
person when he died?

When examining a skeleton, a forensic anthropologist
considers the processes of growth and decline. Bone growth and tooth emergence
can be used to age the skeletons of children, adolescents, and young adults. Once an individual reaches
adulthood, his bones stop growing, and his bones, joints, and teeth begin to
decline from wear and tear. The rate and degree of decline is far more variable
than the process of growth, so anthropologists often struggle to age the
skeletal remains of adults.

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When we are born, our “bones” are mostly soft cartilage. As
we grow, the cartilage is replaced by bone at areas called a growth plate at
the end of each bone. Once growth is complete, the growth plates fuse. Infants
have more than 300 growth plates which eventually fuse, and since the growth plates
fuse and different, known rates, an anthropologist estimates age by analyzing
the fused and unfused plates. Teeth also emerge from the gums at a predictable
age and provide an accurate estimate of age in juveniles.

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Forensic anthropologists can estimate the age of young
adults by looking at the skull. When we are born, our skull consists of five
flat bones connected by fibrous material called sutures. These sutures allow
our heads to expand as we grow, but once we reach adulthood and stop growing,
the sutures begin to fuse, and most are completely fused by the time we are
40-years old. If the sutures on the skull have not yet fully fused, then an
anthropologist can use them as a rough guide to estimate the age of the
individual.

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Once bone growth stops and the skull sutures have
disappeared, the forensic anthropologist must estimate age at the time of death by studying the degenerative
changes in the skeleton. Joints are prone to deterioration, and the pelvis is
one of the most common areas used for age estimation. The two halves of the
pelvis meet above the pubic area at a joint called the pubic symphysis. This
joint undergoes consistent changes throughout
a person’s life and can be used to estimate age. Another consistent change in
the human body is the cartilage between the end of the fourth rib and the sternum.
Over time, this cartilage slowly changes to bone. Other degenerative changes in
the spine and joints provide clues to the age of the individual.

I suggest this excellent slideshow for more information on ways to age skeletal remains.

How long ago did this
person die?

One of the most difficult questions a forensic
anthropologist is asked to answer is how long skeletal remains have been at the
location where they were found. If investigators hope to compare the remains to
a list of missing persons, they need an estimate of the time since death.  Forensic taphonomy is the study of the
factors, including environmental factors, which affect decomposition.
Biotaphonomy is the study of how the environment affects the decomposition of
the body, and geotaphonomy is the study
of how decomposition of the body affects the environment around it. Forensic entomology
is the study of insect progression on a corpse, and advances in this field now provide
researchers with an accurate estimation of the time since the death of a recent corpse.

The post-mortem interval of skeletal remains more than a few
years old is difficult to pinpoint. The environment takes a toll on bones. In a
hot, dry environment, bones crack over time, while bones submitted to a cycle
of thawing and freezing disintegrate into fragments. Recent research has
focused on measuring the citrate content of bone for an estimation of the time
since death, but results have been varied, and more research is needed. For
now, forensic anthropologists often used their best guess from years of
examining bones to determine the post-death interval of skeletal remains.

Next week, I’ll touch on other information experts can learn
by examining skeletal remains, including what long-deceased populations ate to
survive.

Sign up below for my Mystery Newsletter to read about true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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Robin Barefield is the author of three Alaska wilderness mystery novels, Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, and The Fisherman’s Daughter. To download a free copy of one of her novels, watch her webinar about how she became an author and why she writes Alaska wilderness mysteries. Also, sign up below to subscribe to her free, monthly newsletter on true murder and mystery in Alaska.

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The post Age of Skeletal Remains appeared first on Robin Barefield.