Lay Them to Rest: On the Road with the Cold Case Investigators Who Identify the Nameless

by Laurah Norton

I began to recognize a thorough skeletal analysis when I saw one. Amy also taught me that her field, biological anthropology, and its application to forensic science, was far from static. Anthropologists continually refine and redefine and reform their opinions, and that has a lot of implications for these kinds of criminal investigations. For example, if a skeleton was recovered and examined in 1986 but not identified, it should be regularly revisited. That was Amy’s view, at least, and one she was pushing to make a norm. New technology might be able to reveal new clues about who this person was. Mistakes could be caught—or not even mistakes, necessarily. Perhaps we can gain new understanding or reinterpretation on an unidentified person’s ancestry, their age, their sex characteristics. Getting new eyes trained by new mentors on new methods could be the difference between an identification that finally brings worried families some peace and an everlasting cold case.