All That Remains: A Renowned Forensic Scientist on Death, Mortality, and Solving Crimes

by Sue Black

white male between twenty and thirty years of age, 5ft 6ins to 5ft 8ins in height. From his skeleton, we were able to identify some old injuries that had fully healed by the time he died: fractures to three of his ribs on the right-hand side; a fracture of the right collarbone and another to his right kneecap. If all these injuries were sustained in the same incident it was highly likely that he would have been treated at a hospital and there would be medical records. He’d also had four teeth taken out, the first premolar on each side from both the upper and lower jaws. The drift of the remaining teeth showed that these were unlikely to have been congenitally absent but had been removed professionally. Somewhere, then, a dentist would have records of these specific extractions. But we would have to find them. It was these basic characteristics that generated those 1,500 potential identities.