Category Archives: Human Rights, Migrant Death

Today I got the chance to do something a little different than what I’m normally used to. Last year I spent most of my time at Texas State University doing skeletal analyses. This week so far, we got the opportunity to participate in body intake, help do dental analyses with a forensic odontologist, and now work with personal effects. When each set of remains is processed, the clothes and other personal items are collected and documented. It’s interesting to see what items the migrants bring with them. They bring pictures of their families, letters from home, money, tooth brushes, and prayer cards. They write phone numbers on the inside of their clothes and tuck messages into their shoes.

Our task today was to process the personal effects. Since we take many of the personal effects directly off of the remains themselves, they need to be washed thoroughly first. Helen and I worked with Courtney, a Texas State student, to wash the effects. We set up a work station outside in the parking lot of the Osteological Research and Processing Laboratory (ORPL). Our tools were two buckets with plungers that worked kind of like little washing machines, scrub brushes, and tons of Tide laundry detergent. We were geared up in scrubs, plastic aprons, gloves, and goggles. We had two bags of personal effects to clean. One bag had a shirt and pants, while the other had socks, shoes, and a few other smaller items. All of it was covered in decomposition fluids and needed a good scrub.

It took us a while to clean the effects. By the end of it, we were soaked in water, sweaty, and tired. When we were done, we hung up the personal effects on a clothes line and let them dry in the sun. Some of the more fragile items were taken inside to dry. Natural fabrics, like cotton, will decompose faster than artificially made fabrics like polyester. We had one cotton item that was beginning to fall apart and needed to be handled carefully.

Working with personal effects helps humanize the individuals we are trying to help identify. As forensic scientists we need to be a little detached in order to do our jobs properly, but seeing these effects reminds us that the bones are people with families that loved them. Once the personal effects are dry, they are then photographed and documented. Eventually they will end up on a missing persons database as part of a missing individual’s profile that may led to their identification and sending them home to family. Hopefully, I will get another chance to work with personal effects.

–Amanda

We have spent the last three days working at the  Texas State University Osteology Research and Processing Laboratory (ORPL) located on the Freeman Ranch. Our main goal in visiting the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State is to conduct skeletal analyses on unidentified migrants recovered in Brooks County Texas. Over the course of two years (2013-2014), the University of Indianapolis team worked with teams from Baylor University to exhume over 100 unidentified individuals from the Sacred Heart Burial Park in Falfurrias. Brooks County no longer buries its identifieds, so in addition to those exhumed individuals needing forensic anthropology analysis there are additional individuals that have been and continue to be recovered from the county needing attention as well. The recoveries and exhumations happen very quickly but the skeletal analyses take a much longer time. Therefore, there are still individuals needing a forensic anthropology analysis in order to begin the identification process. Many of these unidentified individuals were (and are) brought to Texas State University for analysis as part of their Operation Identification initiative. Last summer and this summer we volunteered to visit Texas State for a week of intensive focus on skeletal analyses. Last year the UIndy team and teams from Texas State and other universities completed 15 skeletal analyses in five days.  We are on track to do that again. It is amazing watching so many dedicated volunteers passionately working towards identifying these individuals.

In addition to working on the skeletal cases, the UIndy team has been offered other opportunities to participate in the identification process.  We routinely do forensic casework in Indiana, but we only bring the skeletal elements back to our lab for a scientific examination. All personal effects and associated evidence go with local law enforcement.  This week the UIndy students were given the opportunity to work with the personal effects of the unidentified migrants. They removed the items during intake, washed them and documented the items (with photos and notes).  This is a valuable learning experience for the UIndy team. It not only provides a learning opportunity but also a way to see another side of this humanitarian crisis.

This week the UIndy and Texas State teams have analyzed 11 cases to date.  UIndy was given a goal of 8 cases and I think we will meet and might even exceed that number. That means more individuals that are entering the identification process. Plus, once we get through the backlog of individuals that need forensic analyses we can begin to focus on the exhumations again.

~KEL