It shouldn’t be unusual for a physique to be moved after a homicide, often to cover or get rid of proof.
And whereas the Arizona desert could appear to be the excellent place to commit such against the law, a brand new examine reveals {that a} cadaver can nonetheless leave vital clues behind in that harsh surroundings.
Arizona State University researchers have discovered that hint parts linger at an unique dump web site even after an intensive period of time. These parts can present insights into postmortem processes, serving to forensic investigators uncover clandestine burials and relocate the stays of homicide victims.
“A lot of times a murderer will kill someone and put the body somewhere, stash it, panic and then move it. And how can you ever trace where they have done this?” stated Assistant Professor Katelyn Bolhofner with the School of Interdisciplinary Forensics, who collaborated with President’s Professor Pam Marshall from the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences on the examine.
“The surprising result was that even with the hot Arizona summer, we could still tell that there had been something that was dying and decomposing in that spot in the desert,” Bolhofner stated.
Uncovering signatures in the soil
Prior to the examine, Bolhofner and Marshall believed that any proof on the unique web site of a transported physique could be baked below Arizona’s scorching summer season solar.
That was removed from the case.
The study used two 200-pound pig fashionsNo stay animals had been harmed or used for the functions of this analysis and all procedures had been carried out in accordance with institutional pointers and overseen by the Arizona State University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. that had been dressed up in denims and a button-up shirt by college students, since homicide victims are generally clothed. They had been left to decompose in massive cages (to maintain scavenging animals away) in numerous environments and seasons in the Sonoran Desert.
After 25 days, the stays had been moved to a secondary burial location. Then, over a interval of 9 months, the researchers examined the soil the place the mannequin was initially positioned, the place it was moved and in a location adjoining to the unique burial as a management.
“It’s a multifaceted, year-round project to try to determine timing, insects involved, and the humidity and the temperature and many other of these factors,” Bolhofner stated.
What they discovered had been distinct microbial fingerprints the place dying gave option to new life — micro organism and fungi that when lived inside or on the physique and had been launched into the surrounding floor as decomposition occurred.
“It turned out to be a really crazy finding,” Bolhofner stated. “It’s like the murder victim is leaving a signature of themselves in death … almost like leaving breadcrumbs right around the desert (indicating) that they had been there, and those breadcrumbs stayed there in the soil, invisible to the naked eye for a year.”
“No one has ever done an experiment like this,” Marshall stated. “It was unique because no one had looked at a dumped body that was then moved. It was also unusual because no one’s been looking at the Sonoran Desert.”
It’s like the murder victim is leaving a signature of themselves in death … almost like leaving breadcrumbs right around the desert.
Kaitlyn BolhofnerAssistant professor of forensics
Counting on collaboration
The study was a collective and collaborative effort.
ASU graduate Jennifer Matta Salinas worked on the study for her honors thesis. She collected and processed the data, and extracted DNA for the study.
“I felt like my results definitely opened the door to a novel area of forensic science that has many avenues to explore and to still verify,” stated Salinas, who earned a bachelor’s diploma in forensic science. “I’m hoping someday it is used to help find someone’s loved ones months or years after their disappearance no matter where the environment is.”
The DNA was then despatched to ASU’s Genomics Facility for evaluation and sequencing by Kristina Buss, and Teaching Professor Ken G. Sweat carried out the chemical evaluation of the soil.
“We here in the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences and the School of Interdisciplinary Forensics are very collaborative — we depend on each other,” Marshall said. “Without Jennifer needing to write her thesis, this wouldn’t have happened. Without Ken doing the elemental analysis, that part wouldn’t have happened either.”
Future forensic potential
Stuart Somershoe, a retired police detective with the Phoenix Police Department’s missing-persons division, was also a part of the project.
According to the World Population Review, Arizona has one of the highest number of missing persons in the nation, with more than 1,000 people missing and 1,588 resolved cases in 2025.
Somershoe says the desert plays into those statistics. He sees the potential application of this study in cold cases and missing persons cases both now and in the future.
“I read the study and could see the value in police investigations,” Somershoe said. “It would certainly be something that could be used.”
Somershoe said that as this research develops and becomes more well-known, it could become a technique as commonly used as DNA testing.
But first, more experiments and studies will be needed.
“We’re way in our infancy,” Marshall said.
The researchers are interested in taking the study on the road to see if the findings can be confirmed in other climates, but Marshall is hopeful.
“This study is really specific to this climate and this landscape and this geography,” Marshall said. “Our soil and our climate (are) so harsh and so odd. The fact that this can be proven here should show that in other climates, it’s much more doable. Those climates are much friendlier.”
The researchers also plan to verify that human remains would yield similar results.
“We need to confirm that the things we’re seeing in pigs are the same in humans,” she stated. “We need to figure out how what we have discovered is transferable.”