Exhumation in forensic investigations

DEFINITION: Excavation and removal of a previously buried human body for purposes of analysis, legal investigation, or reburial in another location.

SIGNIFICANCE: Bodies are sometimes exhumed from formal, marked graves during the investigation of suspicious deaths, and exhumation is a common activity in the investigation of forensic scenes where bodies have been concealed by burial. In the latter cases, recovery not only of the remains but also of associated physical evidence (artifacts, soil, and insects) can assist investigators in determining manner and time since death. The exhumation of executed victims from mass graves has provided vital evidence for the prosecution of individuals accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In most cultures, it is considered disrespectful to disturb the resting places of the dead. Exhumation of human remains may be required under legal mandate, however, if the remains need to be examined for a variety of reasons or if they need to be moved to new locations to avoid the impacts of changes in land use.

Reasons for Exhumation

Apart from the requirement to exhume remains from a criminal covert burial, exhumation from a formal, marked grave may legally occur in the investigation of a suspicious death when new is required from the remains. In addition, with advances in DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) analysis, the bodies of previously unidentified individuals from battlefields or accident locations such as airplane crash sites are sometimes exhumed for sampling and identification. Famous individuals, such as US president Zachary Taylor, have been exhumed so that forensic scientists could attempt to answer historical questions with the latest technologies and methods. In cases in which recently buried individuals or relatively recently established cemeteries are being moved, judges may issue permits for exhumation and removal. Exhumation in all cases concerning formal graves can proceed only after legal authority is granted.

Human remains in prehistoric burial sites and centuries-old cemeteries must sometimes be exhumed when these sites are threatened by government-funded projects such as highway or reservoir construction. In the United States, excavation of such sites—especially if they are on federal land—requires both federal and state permission and public notification to identify any descendants of the persons buried there. The State Historic Preservation Office of the state where the cemetery is located must be involved in a discussion with all interested parties to develop a plan for the exhumation, analysis, and reburial of remains from cemeteries that are considered historically significant. If there is no way for the planned project to avoid disturbing the cemetery, exhumation is conducted by a team of professional archaeologists and the remains are usually analyzed by physical anthropologists before reburial.

Mass Graves

Mass graves constitute special settings for exhumation because they contain the closely associated remains of multiple persons. Remains may have been placed in these large burial pits or trenches in an organized or a disorganized (jumbled) manner. Generally, the remains found in mass graves are those of persons who shared one or more common traits—ethnic, political, or religious—that led them to be executed and placed in the graves together. International law provides the legal justification for exhumation of such graves as a means of collecting evidence to use in the prosecution of war criminals.

The presence of numerous clustered, disorganized bodies makes the documentation and removal of remains from mass graves particularly challenging. In some cases, the complex mixture includes remains exhibiting various stages of decay, particularly if some of the bodies are those of fairly recent victims.

Methods of Exhumation

The simplest and most destructive method of exhumation involves the use of a backhoe or other heavy machinery to simply scoop out the contents of a grave and place them in a new casket for reburial at another location. This may be a court-permitted procedure if the goal is simply to move remains to a new cemetery.

In contrast, in the case of a covert burial forming part of a forensic scene or a prehistorically or historically significant burial, exhumation follows standard archaeological methods. The top of the grave is first exposed and mapped, and then the site is carefully excavated with trowel, brush, and wooden or bone tools (so as not to damage bone) until the entire individual is exposed for recording. If the individual is skeletonized and bone preservation is poor, individual bones are labeled and bagged separately as they are removed to enhance later identification in the laboratory. Care is taken also to collect samples of the surrounding soil matrix, to record and collect any associated artifacts or coffin hardware, and to screen the excavated soil for small remains.

Similar basic archaeological methods of gridding the site area for mapping, screening excavated soil, and extensive photo documentation are used in the exhumation of unidentified military remains (usually from airplane crash sites) by the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command (JPAC). In JPAC exhumations, however, less effort is made to record all the details and measurements than is the case in exhumation of historical sites, because the primary goal is the recovery of bone and other artifacts that can lead to the positive identification of the deceased service member.

Mass graves are crime scenes on a large scale, so the use of standard archaeological techniques is complicated by the sheer volume of remains and artifacts that must be documented. The leaders of such an excavation must take care to develop a standardized system of recording, ensure that all investigating personnel follow that system, and check data accuracy periodically so that they can build legally valid databases of information on the remains recovered.

Bibliography

Albano, Giussepe Davide, et al. "Toxicological Analysis in Tissues Following Exhumation More Than Two Years after Death (948 Days): A Forensic Perspective in a Fatal Case." Toxics, vol. 11, no. 6, June 2023, p. 485, doi:10.3390%2Ftoxics11060485. Accessed 15 Aug. 2024.

Dupras, Tosha L., et al. Forensic Recovery of Human Remains: Archaeological Approaches. CRC Press, 2006.

Haglund, William D. “Recent Mass Graves: An Introduction.” In Advances in Forensic Taphonomy: Method, Theory, and Archaeological Perspectives, edited by William D. Haglund and Marcella H. Sorg. CRC Press, 2002.

Hoshower, Lisa M. “Forensic Archaeology and the Need for Flexible Excavation Strategies: A Case Study.” Journal of Forensic Sciences, vol. 43, no. 1, 1999, pp. 53–56.

Little, Becky. "What Happens When a Body Is Exhumed for a Criminal Investigation?" A&E, 22 Mar. 2023, www.aetv.com/real-crime/exhuming-bodies-from-the-grave-criminal-investigation. Accessed 14 Aug. 2024.

Schmitt, Stefan. “Mass Graves and the Collection of Forensic Evidence: Genocide, War Crimes, and Crimes Against Humanity.” In Advances in Forensic Taphonomy: Method, Theory, and Archaeological Perspectives, edited by William D. Haglund and Marcella H. Sorg. CRC Press, 2002.

Sigler-Eisenberg, Brenda. “Forensic Research: Expanding the Concept of Applied Archaeology.” American Antiquity, vol. 50, 1985, pp. 650–55.