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Murder Essay

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Outside the town of Shelby Township, Indiana was a woman’s body lying in the woods of a wildlife refuge. The body was stumbled across by a wildlife refuge worker on September 6, 2010. It was covered in dirt and leaves when found on site. The victim was covered with 3rd degree burns leaving very little room to determine the ethnicity. The hands and feet were shown to be missing and the tibia, pelvis, skull, humerus, and ribs were retrieved. The hands and feet were never found but a knife was left with no blood or fingerprints left on the knife. This was believed to be a murder case considering the hands and feet were chopped off in an unnatural way. The victim was found to be wearing a floral dress and a red clutch with no identification…show more content…
The measurements of the found Tibia and Humerus, perfectly matched the estimated traits.
The ethnicity of this individual was determined, very thoroughly, through a series of observations and tests regarding the skull, and nasal cavity. The patient is concluded to be of African American ancestry based on the percentage of results that match up with certain African American ethnicity structural traits, such as, the shape of orbital openings and their nasal index. The nasal index of an the victim was calculated to be 0.85mm and the normal expectations of African American ethnicity (>.53) point straight the conclusion that the victim is of African American heritage. The height of an individual is most often determined by the examination of the long bones, such as the femur and tibia. In order to determine the height of this victim, measurements of the Tibia and Humerus were collected, each were then calculated to form an approximated height. For a female of african american background, the tibia was 35 cm long and calculated a height around 5 feet. After measuring the length of the recovered humerus (29 cm), using a specific formula, the approximate height, for this skeleton, is about 4’8” to around 5’3”.
Age, is not always the most accurate thing to determine in a forensic anthropology lab. Determining a person's age is dependent on many bones. At birth, all humans have about 405 bones,
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