VCU Forensic Science Techniques uses bugs to help crack crimes

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RICHMOND, Va. – When police discover a badly decomposed body, it's hard to tell how the person died, leaving many crimes unsolved. Now, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University are testing a concoction of flesh-eating bugs that could provide the break police need to determine how and when the person died.

"What’s found in the bugs could very much help steer a death investigation in the right direction," said Jennifer S. Strano, a forensic investigator with the Henrico County Police Department in Virginia.

Maggots recovered from a victim's body are being tested for clues by grinding them up in a blender to separate toxins that the bugs consumed on the body. Samples of the mixture are placed in test tubes, where a special chemical is added to help the toxins float to the top, where they can be removed for analysis. The researchers have coined the mixture "The Maggot Milkshake."

"You are what you eat. So if the body had taken any type of drugs prior to death, and the maggots are eating on that body, then the drugs are going to wind up in the maggots," says lead researcher and VCU toxicology graduate student Michelle R. Peace.

Some of Peace's research maggots are grown in a lab run by one of her advisors, Dr. Jason H. Byrd, Ph.D., a professor of forensic science and biology at VCU and one of only a handful of certified forensic entomologists in the nation. Byrd thinks the maggot milkshake could be a valuable tool for law enforcement in solving crimes.

"In certain situations, particularly in the Southeastern United States where decomposition happens very fast, it's not unusual to have an entire human body reduced to a skeleton in six-to-seven days," says Byrd. "Testing the maggots might be the only way they can come up with a toxicological assessment about what happened to this person at or around the time of death."

Maggots, which later turn into flies, are useful to study, Byrd says, because they arrive within minutes of death and begin eating the victim’s body – along with anything the victim had consumed prior to death. Once the toxins are separated from the maggots, they are analyzed and identified for drugs and how much were present in the sample. Then, the scientists’ findings are relayed to forensic investigators as part of their investigation.

"If the forensic scientist can analyze those maggots and tell us this person had a whole lot of cocaine or a whole lot of heroin in their system then that could really help solve a case," said police investigator Strano.

Although part of this technology has been around since the 1950s, Byrd says it has only recently become popular. "Like it or not, the reason forensic entomology has become more accepted is because it's featured more on TV shows. They've brought forensic science into the living room."

VCU is one of only two institutions in the world conducting this research and pairing forensic scientists with toxicologists to help solve crimes. "Forensic toxicologists are extremely significant in legal situations," says VCU pathology professor Alphonse Poklis, Ph.D., who specializes in forensic toxicology and is an advisor to Peace on the Maggot Milkshake. "When a drug has been found in a victim’s brain, prosecutors will want to know if it represents a drug overdose, therapeutic drug administration or drug abuse. Forensic toxicologists answer these questions by analyzing how drugs affect the brain."

Details of the research will be available to state crime labs across the country as early as next year.


About Jason H. Byrd

Jason H. Byrd has been an assistant professor in biology and forensic science at Virginia Commonwealth University since April 2000. Previously, he taught at the University of Florida, where he received his Ph.D. in forensic entomology with emphasis on forensic anthropology and forensic botany as well as his M.S. in forensic entomology and his B.S. in agriculture. He is a diplomate and chairman of the American Board of Forensic Entomology, a qualified expert witness in forensic entomology and a certified law enforcement instructor. He conducts workshops and training lectures for law enforcement investigators throughout the nation on proper collection and processing of insect evidence at crime scenes, and is author of numerous articles in professional journals.