All the Time in the World

The “body farm” at Texas State University is a place almost no one is allowed to see, because it’s one of very few places in the world that deliberately puts out human bodies to decompose in nature. We asked if we could visit, and they agreed. This episode was originally released in 2017. Say hello on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts. Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, invitations to virtual events, special merch deals, and more. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop. Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 1:02Speaker 00

  This week, we wanted to share one of our very favorite episodes. We released it back in 2017, and people still write to us about it all the time. And I still think about the day we recorded it.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  What is that you're holding?

• 1:25Speaker 02

  This is a mandible, the jawbone.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:35Speaker 00

  And that skull is in half.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, this person was autopsied. So that is an autopsy cut.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  So that they can examine the brain.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  There's a little bag here that says "Hands and Feet." Do those usually get separated because it's...

• 1:53Speaker 02

  It's just there. Lots of little, small bones. So we put them in a separate bag just so that they don't get... Scattered out throughout the box. It's easier to keep them together.

• 2:06Speaker 00

  This is Dr. Daniel Westcott, the director of the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, about 30 miles from Austin. We met with him in a nondescript building, a warehouse, really, so plain we drove right past it twice. But when you get out of the car and walk to the door, you see a small paper sign with a vulture and a skull, and you know you've found it. There are very few places in the world that do what they do here.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  While you would think that we would know a lot about how bodies decompose, it actually turns out that we really know very little about what's going on. So the work that's done here is pretty vital to that.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  At Dr. Westcott's center, they deliberately set out human bodies to decompose in nature. Most of the bodies are lying on the ground, face up, with their arms at their sides. But researchers also place bodies in trunks of cars, wrap them in tarps, and bury them in shallow graves.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  As a culture, in some ways, we actually are kind of scared of death. And we embalm bodies so that they don't decompose as fast. And we don't want to see that process going on. But that process does go on, and we need to be able to understand how it works.

• 3:30Speaker 00

  How big is the facility and how many bodies are here?

• 3:33Speaker 02

  The facility is 26 acres, and it sits on a 4,200-acre ranch. And we get about 70 donations a year. And then the bodies are usually left to decompose for about six months to several years, depending on the research protocol. And then the skeletons come back here. And so we added about 70 skeletons per year to the collection.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  So if you had to guess how many bodies are in some state of decomposition here right now, do you know?

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Probably about 60.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  The bodies are donated. They're called gifted bodies, and the people who plan to donate themselves to the research when they die are called living donors.

• 4:17Speaker 03

  You know, if they want to do something like put me in the trunk of a car to see what happens there, or under a tarp or a slab of concrete, I got no problem with that.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  This is Grady Early, a retired computer science professor who decided long ago that he wanted his body to go to the Forensic Anthropology Center. Why did you decide to become a donor?

• 4:40Speaker 03

  I think that everyone should be useful in life. And if you can be useful after death as well, so much the better. After all, which would you rather do? Wind up in a box in the ground, just wasting real estate, or be in a box in the lab and at least potentially useful to a researcher sometime in future?

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Grady Early remembers when the facility was getting established more than 10 years ago, and the university was struggling to find the right location. They needed enough space, but they also needed a place that wouldn't freak people out.

• 5:23Speaker 03

  We looked at a site out at the airport. Some of the neighbors didn't like the idea, and they said, "Well, that's going to attract vultures, so we'll have birds interfering with the aircraft." Sat over behind the outlet mall, and there were some people that were...

• 5:44Speaker 03

  Unhappy with that idea. There's always NIMBYs around.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  He's given money to the facility and become fascinated by what he describes as, quote, "helping bones tell their story." When his body eventually becomes part of the research, he'll be joining his mother. She's already there.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  It was an astonishing thing, although in retrospect, I suppose it shouldn't have been. When I told my mother what I was planning on doing, she, being a fairly practical woman, said, "That sounds like a wonderful idea. Sign me up." So I did.

• 6:25Speaker 00

  She died at 102. Grady says he doesn't really care what happens to him when he goes into the field. Some bodies are placed in the open with the vultures and coyotes, and some are protected by long, low cages. Some are clothed and some aren't. It all depends on the nature of the experiment. It's odd to think that if all goes as planned, Grady Early will one day return to the very building where he sat and talked to us, packed in cardboard with the bones of his hands and feet in a small paper bag.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  What I would really like to do is have my skeleton articulated and hung up somewhere in the facility so I can keep my eye on what's going on.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  In his work at Texas State, Dr. Westcott is following in the footsteps of his professor, the biggest name in this field, Dr. Bill Bass. Dr. Bass opened the University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility in 1981. It was the first of these so-called "body farms," although we learned no scientists call them that. And he pioneered the idea that we needed a death database. If too much time has passed when law enforcement encounters a body, they have no way to tell when the person died, much less who they were or what happened.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  And the only way to answer these questions is to put a body outside and watch it decompose. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  We'll be right back. To listen without ads, join Criminal Plus.

• 8:27Speaker 00

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• 10:31Speaker 00

  Here's what happens when you die. After your heart stops beating, your muscles start to stiffen and rigor mortis sets in. Over the next few days, the bacteria that's already in your body just starts to take over.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  And so, as they do, they start to produce gases. And these gases initially will just kind of work their way through the arteries and veins, stuff like that, and you get what's called marbling. And then it also, then the next kind of step to this is that that gas starts to build up and causes the bodies to go through what's called a bloat stage. So they'll actually kind of puff up.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  How long after death does that happen?

• 11:15Speaker 02

  It depends on the time of year, but it can, it can range from three or four days to a few weeks. Usually here, probably within about five days, they're going into bloat. Once that happens, then the other thing that's happening is that you're also getting flies that are attracted to the body. And those flies are laying eggs, and they tend to lay eggs in natural orphans, so they like the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, stuff like that. And then they, so those maggots will hatch, and there again, depends on the species and

• 11:58Speaker 02

  the temperature, depends on how long it takes, but usually a few days to a week or so. And they start feeding on the body as well. So you've got that process going on, and then you've got, the internal organs are decomposing, and so those internal organs are kind of liquefying. And with the gas that's building up, that liquid gets pushed out, and that's what we call the purge phase, so that you get what's called purge fluid. And so, it's just a dark fluid.

• 12:30Speaker 00

  Dark?

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:32Speaker 00

  What is it, it's not blood, what does it mean?

• 12:36Speaker 02

  No, it's just a combination of all the internal organs that have decomposed.

• 12:50Speaker 00

  This is a big place.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  It is a big place. All right, so we turn between the two first telephone.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  The bodies are placed on Freeman Ranch, which sits off a small highway just a few miles from the lab. Once you pass through the gates, you see what I only imagine you might see on any number of ranches in Texas: cactus, tall green grass, and cows. We just kept driving down a dirt road, taking a left or right whenever we were told to. And then we arrived.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  The only difference between this part of the ranch and any other was the giant fence and locked gate.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  So our first stop will be at the shed there to put on booties.

• 13:45Speaker 00

  OK.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  And in reality, what the booties are for is so that in case you actually literally step in something, you don't drag it back to your car.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Are you, wow, are you kidding?

• 13:57Speaker 02

  That's exactly why. Everybody thinks it's so that it's like protecting the scene, but it's actually so that you don't drag home decomp fluid on your shoes.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  The purge fluid.

• 14:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  Into the, back into the minivan.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  All right. Uh, let's see, we'll start this way.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  So typically, the way that this works is

• 14:24Speaker 02

  the way the bodies are placed depends on what research protocol they're being used in. But typically, they're left uncaged on the surface, caged on the surface, buried, or wrapped in something. So this is one that's left on the surface.

• 14:38Speaker 00

  Only a few feet from the gate sits the first body. It was hard to pick out at first because of the tall grass around it.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  And this is where the individual was originally clothed. And then the scattering is from the different scavengers that have come.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  So we can see a pair of sneakers and a pair of pants and a sock, but then the bones are all kind of broken apart.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're kind of pulled apart at different places.

• 15:07Speaker 00

  Who, what animal did this?

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Well, mostly it started out with vultures, and then probably you've had some raccoons and other things come since then. But most of this is vulture activity.

• 15:18Speaker 00

  I had no idea what to expect when we walked into that field. I was nervous about a lot of things, wondering whether I'd be able to get these images out of my head that night when I went to sleep, trying to figure out how I would carry on an interview while not breathing through my nose, regretting not bringing a change of clothes. But this actually seemed okay. That first body hadn't been that bad. And then we turned a corner.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  All right, so the area that we're getting ready to...

• 15:47Speaker 00

  Oh, look at this!

• 15:49Speaker 02

  The area we're getting ready to pass, actually, this right here is a researcher, actually from New York that's here, so she's got bodies on the surface and bodies that are buried.

• 16:02Speaker 00

  Oh, this is really something.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  So...

• 16:07Speaker 00

  There was a field of bodies under cages, and unlike what we had just seen, these bodies seemed kind of new. All were unclothed. I could see one man in a cage out of my right eye. His stomach was so bloated that it almost touched the top of the cage, and his limbs were spread out to the sides. His skin was a mix of black and brown and purple splotches. I was trying to stay back, but Dr. Westcott went straight for him.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  They could see the maggots, pretty active.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  At this time, stage. And then, so this person has gone through bloat.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  You guys all right?

• 16:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, but this is wild stuff. This is wild stuff. I don't think many people in their lives see stuff like this.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  So you can see, I was talking about, the skin becomes really dark, associated with the sulfuric gas that's produced by the bacteria and stuff. And then you get the active maggot masses going on.

• 17:11Speaker 00

  He kept drawing our attention to things that none of us actually wanted to see up close. So, we were trying to stay with him, but also just trying to keep our eyes straight ahead. It was hard to know what to do, and it was hot, over 90 degrees. And then Dr. Westcott took us to a row of bodies under cages, which seemed to be showing a progression.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  So this is kind of going through time, in a sense. And you can see that they've gone through bloat. They're actually starting, you can see, they're starting to dry out.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 17:51Speaker 00

  So this is, we're kind of going through the process here, walking down the line?

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you can see, these are starting to get skeletonized.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  How long have these guys been out here, do you think?

• 18:03Speaker 02

  These have been out here probably a little over a year. But you can see, now you can't even see the cadaver decomposition. As a matter of fact, you can barely see the body anymore, because of all that vegetation around it.

• 18:15Speaker 00

  Purge fluid is so nutrient-rich that it acts like a super fertilizer. And so bodies in the final stages of decomposition are surrounded by bunches of these tall, healthy wildflowers. The flowers are back.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  The flowers are back, yeah.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  Dr. Wescott is working on a new project that uses drones and infrared cameras to detect how much organic material is in the soil. If law enforcement is trying to locate a missing person in a huge area, 5,000 acres, they can use the drone technology to narrow things down, looking for spots with a lot of organic material. They're also working with police dogs. Most cadaver dogs are trained with small tissue samples, but it turns out, the dogs don't always know how to react when they encounter a whole body. So, police bring their dogs to the ranch to get used to finding the real thing.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  These different experiments are spread around the ranch, and Texas State collaborates with other facilities. Dr. Wescott showed us an experiment where three different centers across the country placed a body on the exact same day to compare regional differences. So, the body that we're looking at right there seems to me to be rather new.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, the individual was probably placed yesterday.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  Oh, that's a brand-new body?

• 19:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 19:47Speaker 00

  Oh, isn't that something? We'll be right back. Support for Criminal comes from Mint Mobile. Some things appear too good to be true, but a $15 monthly phone plan isn't one of them. Mint Mobile has affordable, premium wireless plans, and they include high-speed data and unlimited talk and text. And they make signing up easy. You can do it all online. We have a friend who switched to Mint Mobile. He said that it's a great deal, and he liked that he didn't necessarily need to get a new phone or phone number when he switched. To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com/Phoebe.

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• 21:02Speaker 00

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  Head to talkiatory.com/criminal to complete the short assessment and get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y.com/criminal to get matched in minutes. Talkiatory.com/criminal. Our last stop was a clearing with three shallow graves. On the day we visited, they were in the process of excavating the skeletons. The excavation was being done by more than 20 students, all women. A lot of this work is done by women. Dr. Westcott is the only male director in the country, and almost all of his colleagues and his graduate students are women.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Dr. Kate S. Bradley was in charge of the excavation.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  It's interesting, I think, to do this kind of work, to look at all of these dead bodies, basically, and all of these human remains in the lab. I see a skeleton. I see a task at hand. I see a job that I have to do, particularly with the forensic cases that come in. We have a job to help identify those. So going in there, analyzing the skeleton, that's what we do. For me, it's different when I walk out to the forensic anthropology research facility where people donate their bodies, because here, when I see remains, I see people who donate their bodies. This was their last wish. This is what they wanted to do. So for me, it's very nice, coming out here, seeing them in their final resting place,

• 23:17Speaker 04

  and it's very natural. They just return. Turn to the earth.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Are you a donor?

• 23:23Speaker 04

  I am a donor.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Are other members of your family?

• 23:27Speaker 04

  No, nobody else wants to do this but me. My husband is pretty uneasy about it, but I've looked at so many skeletons. I built my career. I'm looking at skeletons, so I think it's only right that I give back.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Just listen to the birds.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's incredibly peaceful.

• 23:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a beautiful place to be.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  On our way out, we made one last stop. The same stop that all the bodies make before they leave the ranch. The processing lab.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  What does the kettle do?

• 24:09Speaker 02

  It just simmers them for a little bit. It loosens up all the soft tissue.

• 24:17Speaker 02

  Yes, they really are just giant soup kettles.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  But then...

• 24:23Speaker 00

  What's the crock pot for?

• 24:24Speaker 02

  Small hands and feet and stuff like that. It's the small bones, so a lot of times it's easier to finish them off in there. And then, so they're cooked in here, and then they're... Right over here, and they scrub them all down.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  What are these little guys down here?

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Tips of your fingers.

• 24:42Speaker 00

  That's a fingertip.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  Yep. And then these are all toes. And you can see the little teeny toes. And then these little things right there, these are actually extras. They're not even included in the 206.

• 24:55Speaker 00

  You know, it looks like wood.

• 24:58Speaker 00

  This bone almost looks like wood.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. It takes on the color of the soil.

• 25:03Speaker 00

  We saw two complete skeletons laid on metal gurneys and organized anatomically. It's amazing to see how fragile our ribs are. We were very lucky to be permitted to visit. Normally, only law enforcement and researchers are allowed in. Even if you decide to donate your body, you'll never be able to see this place while you're alive. But people do ask.

• 25:28Speaker 05

  Well, usually when someone calls, they say something along the lines of, "I'm interested in donating my body to science, and I hear that you take bodies."

• 25:38Speaker 00

  If you call for information, you'll speak with Lauren Meckel.

• 25:41Speaker 05

  And so I let them know about the forensic and anthropology center and how their body can help identify missing persons. And they usually get very excited about that. And they ask about some of the research projects that we're doing, specifically about the vulture studies. People are really interested in vulture consumption of human remains.

• 26:05Speaker 00

  Like they want to be part of that study or they do not want to be part of that study?

• 26:10Speaker 05

  Many people actually are very interested in being a part of that study. They see it as a sky burial. So it's something that seems peaceful, I suppose.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  You can actually make requests, and they'll try to honor them. You can ask to wear a certain item of clothing or a piece of jewelry. You can ask to be placed under a tree. One man asked to be placed with a cellphone, and they did it. People also call to ask about the status of a friend or family member. So people will say, "I'm just wondering if they're all decomposed now and they're back inside."

• 26:48Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  I think that's the question I would want to know, too, if someone was, if you had got them off the ground and back in the box.

• 26:57Speaker 05

  Yes, and usually people are surprised by how long it takes, too, because sometimes it can be six months if we're doing a study where someone is wrapped in a tarp, for instance, and they skeletonize really quickly, and then we can pick them up. Really fairly soon after their death. But for the most part, they stay out there for about two years.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  Many of the donors have spent their life in education and see this as a way to continue teaching after they've died. And many work in law enforcement and have seen the value of the research firsthand.

• 27:31Speaker 06

  I kind of see it as an extension of being an investigator.

• 27:35Speaker 00

  Elaine Walker is a retired private investigator. And last year, she made the decision to donate her body to the Forensic Investigation Research Station in Colorado. How do you like retired life?

• 27:50Speaker 06

  It's the best job I've ever had.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  Oh, good.

• 27:53Speaker 06

  I loved my job, but this is the best job I've ever had.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  May I ask how old you are?

• 28:00Speaker 06

  67.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  You're 67. But why not donate your body to science in another way, like an organ donor? Is there something about the, I guess that there's no investigative quality when you donate your liver?

• 28:13Speaker 06

  Well, no, but I am an organ donor. However, at my age, some of my organs are, you know, wouldn't really work out in somebody else's body. They're a little on the old side.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  How do you imagine the body farm? Peaceful? Have you seen pictures?

• 28:32Speaker 06

  No, I haven't seen pictures. I would imagine it's peaceful. It is out away from civilization. And I imagine that there are just bodies laying there and birds coming in to feast on them. That doesn't bother me at all, that I'm going to be eaten.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  That's a wild thing to be talking about, isn't it?

• 28:57Speaker 06

  Yes, it is.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  What did you tell your family when you signed up? How did they respond?

• 29:04Speaker 06

  My husband isn't very excited about it, but he respects that that's what I want to do.

• 29:10Speaker 00

  What will your husband do?

• 29:13Speaker 06

  When he dies?

• 29:14Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:16Speaker 06

  That's a good question, because he won't discuss it. He's so terrified of death, he won't discuss it. Interesting. It's like opposite ends of the spectrum. Yes, it really is. But I did tell him that I was gonna send him off the cheapest way possible if he doesn't tell me what he wants. But he still won't tell me what he wants.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  Elaine was the fourth person we spoke with who planned to donate their body to a body farm, but whose spouse refused to even talk about it. Even Dr. Bill Bass, the pioneer of the body farm, is leaving the decision up to his wife. Since that trip, I keep thinking about one particular part of Freeman Ranch, a patch of woods off the main path. It was greener than other places, shady. Dr. Westcott stopped us there and asked us to listen to the birds. Right in front of us, there was a body under a tree, protected from the sun. Someone who thought they might be able to do some good.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  Someone who agreed to be placed outside, under the trees, with the bugs, until they disappear.

• 30:40Speaker 00

  Criminal is created by Lauren Spoor and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susannah Roberson, Jackie Sugeko, Lilly Clark, Lena Silhison, and Megan Kinnane. This episode was originally mixed by Rob Byers. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Semenetti. Special thanks to Sergeant Zachary McBride of the Guadalupe County Sheriff's Office, and Alice Wilder. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. And you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com/newsletter.

• 31:21Speaker 00

  We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program, Criminal Plus. You can listen to Criminal, This is Love, and Phoebe Reads a Mystery without any ads. Plus, you'll get bonus episodes. These are special episodes with me and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spoor, talking about everything from how we make our episodes, to the crime stories that caught our attention that week, to things we've been enjoying lately. A while ago, we even talked about what it was like to visit the body farm, and we caught up with Dr. Dani Westcott. That episode is called "Back to the Body Farm." To learn more, go to patreon.com/criminal. We're on Facebook at This is Criminal, and Instagram and TikTok at Criminal underscore Podcast. We're also

• 32:02Speaker 00

  on YouTube at youtube.com/criminalpodcast. Criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great shows at podcast.voxmedia.com. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

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