对法医的迷恋
Professor, Students Help Police Investigators Dig up Evidence
四年前，美国政府宣布了一项新政策.S. military worked with Kate Kolpan and a small group of forensic anthropologists and anthropology students to find an American airman’s remains buried in a horse paddock in 德国.
The airman had been missing for more than 70 years after his plane was shot down in 1945 during a World War II bombing mission. The young man from Illinois was not among the two known survivors of the plane’s 9-man crew.
"I want to get my students out there as much as possible," Katharine Koplan, 助理教授, Forensic Anthropologist
Kolpan, 365滚球官网的助理教授, and one of her U of I graduate students were part of a larger recovery effort that had gone through the arduous process of piecing together evidence and contacting local authorities and neighbors in a small, 德国伯格. They let everyone know why they had come to excavate the area, a process they anticipated could take weeks or months with a good chance of coming up empty-handed.
“只花了一天的时间就找到了遗体, 这让每个人都很惊讶, 就连美国,科尔潘说。, 一位助理教授 文化、社会及司法学系. Kolpan is a bioarchaeologist and forensic anthropologist for Northern Idaho whose research includes a focus on warfare and the recovery, 人类遗骸的鉴定和纪念. 作为助理教授, Kolpan has had students work alongside law enforcement on active homicide investigations involving exhumed evidence such as human bones. The experience not only assists government agencies, but it also helps students make career choices.
“这项工作通常在外面进行, so I want to get my students out there as much as possible interacting with agencies,科尔潘说。, who earlier this year accompanied several graduate students as they helped Lewiston Police and Idaho State Police in their efforts to find the remains of a homicide victim buried on property in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley south of 莫斯科.
“这是一起非常活跃的刑事案件，”科尔潘说.
Sydnee Soderberg, a graduate archaeology student who completed undergraduate classwork in forensic anthropology, was among students who accompanied Kolpan to the North Lewiston crime scene.
“这是我第一次出现在犯罪现场,索德伯格说, who grew up in Lewiston with one of the officers working the case. “这很有趣。, and something anyone who wants to learn about forensic anthropology should be a part of.”
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The students screened dirt looking for evidence such as small bones and bone fragments.
“Getting that kind of field experience is really important,” Soderberg said. “它建立了现实生活中的人们之间的联系, 你可能会遇到的人, 所以建立这些关系, 我认为, 是非常宝贵的.”
给学生广泛的经验, as well as providing her own expertise to other agencies, Kolpan is reaching out to entities such as the transportation department, which may uncover human remains during earth moving projects.
State law requires that unearthed remains be collected and identified. The Idaho code not only protects gravesites but also provides a provision for disturbing graves inadvertently through construction, 采矿或伐木作业.
“It says any human remains that are found must be reinterred,” Kolpan said.
At least part of the expense of reinterment is borne by the state historical society, but before that happens anthropologists try to determine how the bones got there, 以及它们属于谁.
Kolpan’s experience began as an undergraduate and continued as a graduate student in forensic labs. 研究ing abroad taught her to work closely with foreign entities. 作为法医人类学家和研究科学家, 科尔潘曾去过泰国, 越南, 巴尔干半岛, 德国, 和保加利亚.
带领犹他大学的学生进入这个领域, often to show that forensics isn’t what they may watch on television, 为他们的职业生涯做准备, 或者它唤醒了你换工作的兴趣.
“I try to prepare them for the reality of it,” Kolpan said. “If you don’t like digging in the dirt, or if you’re squeamish, this may not be for you.”
A wide-ranging background in anthropology and archaeology allows Kolpan to wear many hats, she said. This summer she took a group of students to the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast to help excavate an ancient Greek settlement.
But forensics, and bringing students into the fold of forensic science, remains a priority.
“这是关于骨折的, 枪伤中的子弹轨迹, entry and exit wounds and how bones bend and shrink in a fire,”她说。. “在地下，骨头表面会剥落. 可能会有很多碎片，或者小碎片. 其中一些可能很乏味.” Other findings may be traumatic for a forensic scientist.
Unearthing remains that are not fully decomposed requires compartmentalizing, 否则你就无法完成你的工作,”她说。.
“我们不是医生也不是警察, but we can provide information that may help in an investigation,”她说。. “Mostly we’re interested in ‘who is this,’ so we can provide peace to loved ones.”
