The Role of Forensic Anthropology in the Recovery and Analysis of Branch Davidian Compound Victims: Techniques of Analysis

Abstract

The recovery and analysis of human remains from the Branch Davidian Compound, Mount Carmel, Texas, was a multidisciplinary team effort. This presentation deals with one aspect of the forensic anthropological contribution to this collaborative endeavor—the examination and inventory of human skeletal remains and the interpretation of these osteological data. Briefly described first are the content and format of the skeletal inventory and the examination procedures used for data collection. Two subsequent sections illustrate the use of these data to determine (a) age, sex, ancestry, stature, and other distinguishing characteristics, and (b) the presence and nature of any premortem, perimortem, and postmortem trauma. The next section shows how these findings assist in establishing positive identification through, for example, comparison with medical, dental, and other background records, especially comparison of premortem and postmortem radiographs of bones or dentition. In this context, we consider also the sorting of commingled remains, which includes preliminary assessment of rapidly decomposing remains prior to autopsy to preserve information crucial to identification.

Identification and analysis of human remains recovered from wells from the 1991 War in Croatia

“…The most simple are visual recognition and fingerprint analysis. In poorly preserved remains, or in the absence of useable dermatogliphics, the identification team tries to narrow the range of possible matches using basic data such as age-at-death, sex, and stature, and then to establish or reject positive identification based on forensic DNA testing [5,28], dental records [3,4,29,30], or comparisons of antemortem and postmortem X-rays [31][32][33][34].…”

The forensic evaluation of burned skeletal remains: A synthesis

“…They suggested that blunt force trauma was difficult to distinguish from heat related fractures. In a major case application, the study of the decedents of the Branch Davidian incident in Waco, Texas [32,33] also demonstrated that various kinds of perimortem trauma could survive the burning process.…”

The role of forensic anthropology in Disaster Victim Identification (DVI)

“…When forensic anthropologists have assisted in the investigation of mass disasters, they have been critical in a range of analyses [16,26,27] including: separation of osseous from non-osseous material (potentially done in the field and/or the mortuary); separation of human from non-human and non-bone material; (anthropologists were required to distinguish human from nonhuman remains in the New York September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre where many restaurants were located in the area of the destruction); separation of recognizable vs. non-recognizable fragments that require DNA analysis; (retrieval and identification of soft tissue fragments in the 2002 Bali incident, especially from individuals thought to be at the epicentre of the explosion, contributed to the identification of many of the deceased); separation of commingled remains; analysis of small fragments of bone from any region in the body; siding to left and right of skeletal fragments; analysis of cross-sections of bone in soft tissue masses; analysis of incinerated remains with no soft tissue; Evaluation of the above enables the forensic anthropologist to: determine the minimum numbers of individuals present, establish a biological profile (ancestry, sex, age, and/or stature) of those individuals, and provide an opinion on ante-, peri-and post-mortem trauma.…”

“…The coordination of resources has been described as ''one of the most challenging aspects of mass disaster scene processing'' [27]. Although there were numerous calls from police requesting the presence of an anthropologist at scenes, provision of expertise in the mortuary was given a higher priority, particularly in the early stages when the total death toll was being reconfigured on a daily basis and few anthropologists were available.…”