3.Leslie Eisenberg — Direct/Cross

LESLIE EISENBERG: Uh, notably, I was a consultant for the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of New York from 1986 until 1993, when I moved to Wisconsin, um, to take the position as program coordinator for the Wisconsin Historical Society's Burial Sites Preservation Program, where I have occasion, on a fairly regular basis, to examine and identify human bone, animal bone, and so on, for law enforcement. Most of that bone comes from archaeological or older context.

Uh, I also, since 1995, have been a member of a federal disaster team, a regional federal disaster team, that goes by the -- the acronym DMORT, D-M-O-R-T, which stands for Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team.

And in that capacity I have been deployed on several occasions. Uh, the earliest of which was in 1999, uh, at the site of an Amtrak train crash in Bourbonnais, Illinois, where there were fatalities primarily as a result of, uh, um, a fire in the sleeping car of -- of that train.

Um, after that, I was asked, uh, immediately after the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, to be one of the first teams to respond to the east coast disaster, um, where I : had occasion to work to identify, um, and examine, uh, fragmentary human and nonhuman remains. Many of those remains, uh, had been exposed to considerable trauma, uh, and burning, as you might imagine.

And, more recently, in September of 2005, I had occasion to be called or deployed down to Mississippi after the, uh, Hurricane Katrina, and at the same time, Hurricane Rita, uh, came through, to help identify remains, um, of, uh, individuals who died, uh, during the hurricane, as well as collecting and identifying skeletonized human remains that had been washed out of cemeteries, uh, in-ground burials as well as above ground mausoleums.

LESLIE EISENBERG: Um, some of those publications are jointly authored by others with whom I've worked. Um, they appear in what is the preeminent journal in the field of forensic anthropology, which is called the Journal of Forensic Sciences.

Uh, I also have a number of other publications, uh, that span the, um -- the fields of archaeology and forensic anthropology that are specifically focused on human remains and the identification of human remains.

LESLIE EISENBERG: The, um, contents of that voicemail message that was left for me was, uh, that some remains had been found, um, and I was, uh, asked to examine those remains that had been left for me, uh, in a sealed, uh, container in my office awaiting my return.

Uh, at the time I received that call on November 9, I was in transit back to Madison from a, uh, um, national, um, conference on missing persons in Denver, Colorado. I was one of several people at the time who was representing the state of Wisconsin at that conference.

LESLIE EISENBERG: The process, uh, that I used to, um, examine all the material presented to me for examination, um, is a fairly systematic process, and a process that every forensic anthropologist goes through.

And -- And the first thing that I do, uh, and the major contribution that any forensic anthropologist can make to an investigation like this, involves, um, the recognition and sorting of human bone, and in this case burned human bone, from burned and unbone -- unburned, uh, nonhuman bone.

The next step in that process is looking at the burned human bone that has been sorted out to see if there are any diagnostic or telling, um, attributes or traits on any of those fragments, um, that can tell the anthropologist something about whose remains you are looking at.

The next step in the process is taking those diagnostic fragments and developing what we call in the field a biological profile. And what that means is determining, if you can, the age of the individual, the sex of the individual, the stature of the individual, how tall they were, um, and the ancestry, if possible.

Also, uh, critically important is to determine, um, if there's anything else you can tell from those diagnostic fragments, including the presence of any trauma to those remains, uh, that may have been sustained or may have occurred in what we call the antemortem interval, the interval before death, the perimortem interval,

p-e-r-i-m-o-r-t-e-m, and that simply means at or near the time of death, or in the postmortem interval, uh, during a time after death.

And, um, the other activity that I undertook with these burn fragments was trying to see if I could refit any of those fragments with each other.

LESLIE EISENBERG: As I look in this photograph and -- and on the screen, what I can see, and what I saw at the time, are, um, fragments of material, some of which were, um, clearly identifiable as human bone fragments that were. heavily burned and, in some cases, calcined. Some of the bone that you see that looks white in color, um, is what we call calcined.

Um, it is, um -- It represents bone that has lost its moisture content, because all bone, um, has -- has fat content, has moisture content, has blood running through it, and when it's exposed to heat, and considerable heat, that moisture, and the blood, and the -- and the fatty tissue, the marrow, um, will all dry up, and the bone, itself, the or -- the organic content of the bone, um, what makes bone, bone, um, also disappears. And the bone -- calcined bone becomes, um, almost like a piece of porcelain or ceramic in that if you, um, knock it against a table, it will sound very much like a piece of porcelain.

LESLIE EISENBERG: We do. Um, in 1996, there was, um, a very basic scheme developed, uh, by a forensic anthropologist from Texas, and a colleague of his. Um, it -- it's known as the Crow-Glassman Scales. C-r-o-w, hyphen, Glassman, G-l-a-s-s-m-a-n. And what Crow and Glassman did was set up a five-stage, or five-level scheme, if you will, that talks about increasing levels of burning on bone.

Uh, level one, for example, would involve a body that was charred, but would be visually recognizable, um, to, uh, people who know -- knew him or her, or to family members.

And that starts with level one and goes up to level five, and, increasingly, um, there is, uh, more destruction to the body. The body then becomes unrecognizable. Um, and, um, level five is, uh -- depicts the body in a state that is primarily only recognizable, because of its fragmentation and burning, to forensic anthropologists and forensic dentists.

LESLIE EISENBERG: There are, um, many techniques that forensic anthropologists use to determine someone's age, um, when remains are unrecognizable and either too decomposed or, um, skeletonized for a traditional, um, autopsy.

Um, in this case, there, um -- Because of the fragmentation and burning, um, many of -- of the characteristics or traits we look at to make that determination, um, were not present or not recognizable because of the condition of the remains.

But there were several areas, um, of the face, um, skull, if you will, and what we call the postcranial remains, the remains below the skull, that were able to help me come to a determination of an approximate age of the individual whose remains I examined.

LESLIE EISENBERG: Well, what that means to all of us, really, is that once we, um -- as we age, and at about the year -- the age of about 30 to 35, um, our body starts showing signs of wear, and that wear is -- is degenerative. In other words, it's something that happens with use, as -- as we use our bodies to do lots of things. And that's at about the time when forensic anthropologists can pick up signs of arthritis, or what's sometimes called degenerative joint disease, on many parts of the skeleton.

Um, what I did note, from the joint surfaces that were present to examine, was that there were absolutely no traces of the beginnings of arthritis, um, which allowed me to cap the age as no older than 30 to 35 years.

Um, I also had an opportunity in looking at the skull fragments, um -- And some of those fragments had suture lines. Um, when we think of the skull, we may think of a -- a -- a ball-like structure, or a sphere-like structure, but, in fact, our skulls are made up of many joi -- uh, bones that come together at what are kind of joints. They're not like a shoulder joint or a hip joint, but it's where the bones fit together, almost like teeth in a zipper in -- in some places, and -- and those openings, called sutures, where those bones come together, uh, had not fused, um, which is something you typically see as someone, uh -- in someone who's much older than 30 to 35.

LESLIE EISENBERG: No, they are -- they're not. Um, what we are looking at in -- Here we go. What we are looking at in this image are fragments from, um -- from a face, and we are looking at these fragments as if we are looking at someone face to face. And so let me point out some of the landmarks to you to help you orient what it is you're looking at.

Um, this area here represents the top of the left eye socket. This fragmentary bone, um, and this eye -- the top of the eye socket, is actually part of the bone that continues up to begin -- to become the forehead. So we have the top of the left eye socket, the left half of the nose. The nasal bones are two in number. And what this fragment is, is the left half of the nasal bones.

These are fragments from the right -- what would be the area above the right eye socket.

This is a complete -- and one of the few complete -- bones that I actually had an opportunity to examine. A complete right cheekbone. And while the placement may be a little off in this photo, what you are looking at here is the lower portion of the right eye socket.

This is a fragmentary portion of the left cheekbone, and a portion of a bone that runs from the left cheekbone over and above the left open -- the opening for the left ear.

LESLIE EISENBERG: Fairly diagnostic, or telling, to any forensic anthropologist, or any biological anthropologist, is that there are certain shapes that, um, are characteristically female in the skeleton, and other shapes, what we call morphology, that are characteristically male. And one of those key locations that anthropologists look at, um, is actually the top of the eye socket.

In females, that rim, or ridge, is fairly sharp and -- and, um, does not protrude. In male skulls, that area, that edge, is very blunt, and you often see heavy bone development over the eye sockets. And we don't see that here. I don't see that here. And what I see in terms of morphology, and shape, and general bone architecture to the facial bones, but especially above the left eye socket, uh, leads me to conclude that these facial bones and, in particular, this bone here, um, comes from a female.

LESLIE EISENBERG: No, sir, I was not. And that was, uh, because of the extreme fragmentation and burning that did not allow me to reconstruct, um, some of the long bones. In particular, the thigh bone that I would typically measure to develop a -- a stature estimate.

Likewise, many of the landmarks that I would use to determine ancestry or racial affiliation, uh, were not present because of that fragmentation.

LESLIE EISENBERG: As it's generally understood in -- in, uh, forensic anthropology, cause of death is, um, fairly explicit. In other words, what did the person die from?

Manner of death, however, speaks to the mechanism. What caused the death? How did the person die?

LESLIE EISENBERG: Oh, I guess cause of death, um, if -- if I pretended to be a forensic pathologist for a minute, um, might be, um, heart attack, or tuberculosis.

Um, a manner of death, um, for a heart attack, might be, um, accidental. Manner of . death, uh -- in general, there are four different categories, um, that are understood when we talk about manner of death. And, um, one of those categories can be a natural death, which might result from a heart attack.

A second category of manner of death might be considered accidental. Did someone fall off a ladder, um, hit their head, uh, or sustain a spinal injury and die accidentally?

Um, a third manner of death is suicide.

And fourth, most commonly recognized, is homicide.

LESLIE EISENBERG: Well, if you ask a forensic pathologist what the difference is, their first answer will be that they, uh, have been to medical school. They are real doctors. And forensic anthropologists are fake doctors, because they only have a Ph.D. But, in general, um, uh, forensic pathologists are doctors who specialize, uh, in pathology and who have further training and certification in a field called forensic pathology, or pathology, um, that is applied in legal context.

Um, they typically perform autopsies on, um, all types of remains, most of which, I would say, are recognizable. The -- the people can be visually recognizable. Sometimes those individuals, um, have died as a result of a burning episode, or a drowning, um, or any other, um, type of -- of, um, activity.

LESLIE EISENBERG: We are looking at something that's probably unrecognizable to everyone in this courtroom except myself. There are two skull fragments here. We are looking at the internal side of two skull bones that -- actually, three skull bones. I was able to refit these two bones together along this, uh, fracture break, as well as a third fragment that fits along this edge.

These are three fragments from the left side of a human skull, um, and one of those fragments shows, uh, evidence that I believe would speak to my determination of homicidal violence.

LESLIE EISENBERG: Yes, sir. Um, the reason I know that this is the inside of a human skull, are these vessel impressions, these blood vessel impressions, that kind of look like spider webs, or an aerial view of a -- of.a road network somewhere in this country.

Um, the vessels that run along the inside of the skull actually sit in these channels, and, um, the positioning of these channels, and the direction of these channels, actually allows me to make a determination as to whether this bone comes from the left side of the skull or the right side of the skull.

These three bones are all part of a bone called the parietal bone. P-a-r-i-e-t-a-l. And we have a parietal bone on the left side of our skull and a corresponding, or mirror, parietal bone on the right side of our skull.

LESLIE EISENBERG: When I looked at this fragment, there was an area of this fragment that caught my attention almost immediately, and it's this area here that I believed was quite significant with respect to a -- a determination of -- of hom -- homicidal violence.

To me, based on my experience, this would be considered what's called internal beveling. Now, remember, we're looking inside the skull at this moment, and where the hard compact bone of the inside of the skull stops, um, what you're looking at is -- is kind of a honeycomb-looking bone. That is, a bone that's sandwiched between the outside of the skull and the inside of the skull. And whenever there is, um, a, uh -- an unnatural defect to the skull that looks like this, um, where you have internal beveling, or what some people call cratering of the inside of the skull, um, it is identified, uh, as, um, an entrance wound from a gunshot.

LESLIE EISENBERG: I would be happy to. The, um -- Initially, because there were so many fragments to examine, um, and those fragments -- each were identified, um, with the location from where they came, I thought it might be necessary to begin to, um, mark the bone, um, to reference their location of where they were initially found. And what I started to do was, um, to mark those individual fragments that had come from different locations, or from the same general location, simply with different color nail polish.

Um, additionally, the -- the skull fragments were also taken to be x-rayed, and whenever any of those fragments, um, showed something unusual and unexpected in x-ray, those fragments also received a nail polish color, but of a different color to distinguish them from the skull bone fragments that showed no unusual signs in x-ray.

Uh, additionally, it's my understanding that this copper-colored arrow pointing to the opening, um, for what I believe is an entrance wound on this left side of the skull, this, I believe, was affixed or placed by, uh, staff from the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory.

LESLIE EISENBERG: I saw the same bony signature, the same unnatural defect, in this fragment from the occipital bone as I did in the previous, uh, bone, the parietal bone, from the left side of the skull, where you can see that honeycomb appearance, uh, on the inside of the skull.

And here we are looking at the inner table, or the inside of the occipital bone, seeing the same kind of concentric -- partial concentric defect with the exposure of the honeycomb portion, or the intermediate portion, of the skull bone, um, where the force of the entry actually, um, blows a larger area -- or develops that cratering that I spoke about a minute ago.

LESLIE EISENBERG: We are looking at, um, one of ten x-rays that was taken on November 17 of 2005, depicting two of the left parietal bones. And, in particular, um, the -- the fragment that showed the initial, um, unnatural defect, uh, and the presence of four different radiopaque areas, um, small particles that are white in color.

There's one here, right within and adjacent to this cratering. Again, these are the vessels that tell me that this is the inside of the skull.

Here's another one of those bright white flecks. And there are two others. One is right here, and one just below it. And these flecks show up as bright white like this because they, uh -- the x-rays cannot penetrate them or pass through them like they can with the remainder of the bone.

LESLIE EISENBERG: Virtually, um, every other bone in the body was represented by at least one fragment, and in some -- in some cases, many more fragments. And what we see depicted here on this graphic, um, are areas of the body from which I was able to identify one or more fragments, or entire bones, that could be definitively, definitely, identified as to their origin.

For example, the clavicle or collarbone, or, um, the, um, metacarpals. The hand bone. Or the vertebrae. Parts of the spine.