VCU news

By Mike Frontiero
VCU School of Education

RICHMOND, Va. – First, there was the odor from an outbuilding that resulted in the police being called.

Then, there were the bloodstains on the walls of the outbuilding.

But there was no body -- only a foul-smelling residue infested by maggots on the shed’s floor.

A few days later, a badly decomposed body was found on the other side of town, infested by maggots that an insect expert found to be of the same species discovered at the original scene. The expert went further, looking at the possibility that DNA inside the maggots at Scene 1 could be matched with the DNA in the maggots at Scene 2, thus linking murder scene with victim.

The insect expert who was called into the case – which still is under investigation – was Dr. Jason H. Byrd, assistant professor of forensic science and biology at Virginia Commonwealth University and an internationally recognized authority on insect evidence at crime scenes. Byrd, one of just a handful of certified forensic entomologists in the nation, is a key instructor in VCU’s popular new undergraduate forensic science program, which is preparing students for careers as chemists, crime lab analysts, crime scene technicians, federal agents, forensic molecular biologists and toxicologists, among other specialties.

Forensic entomology, Byrd explains, involves using insects as evidence at crime scenes or in other legally related circumstances. Law enforcement agencies are calling more and more on forensic entomologists to help determine, for example, such vital information as when a victim died.

To certain insects, Byrd says, a dead body "is a food resource – a limited food resource for a lot of insects" to which various species come in turn to dine. The larvae, or maggots, of different species appear at different times, in a gradual progression from one to another. That progression, along with the growth stages of the individual species’ larvae, helps provide a clock of sorts for establishing times of death.

One of the major insect families that dine on corpses are blowflies, which are larger than houseflies and whose bodies generally have a distinctive, greenish metallic color.

Temperature, indoor or outdoor lighting, day-night cycles and many other factors affect the growth of insects on corpses, Byrd notes.

One of his research interests is studying insect growth in cadavers using computer simulations that model the various factors that influence the growth rate of insects.

Another research activity in his laboratories involves the use of insects to determine what toxins or drugs may have been in a corpse. Cocaine, heroin, Valium, amphetamines and many other chemicals become incorporated in insects’ hardened outer skin, which can endure for years after the death of the insects and preserve a record of what was in their long-gone cadaver food source. It’s an ultimate tribute to the adage, "You are what you eat," Byrd says.

In addition to his research, Byrd is often called upon to help collect and evaluate insect evidence at crime scenes. He is often called as an expert witness in court, and he conducts workshops for law enforcement agencies to teach investigators how to collect insect evidence properly at crime scenes. He is a regular lecturer at the FBI’s National Academy at Quantico, VA, teaching new agents and senior law enforcement officials in two courses: "Managing Death Investigations" and "Human Remains Location and Recovery. He also reviews cases involving human death and insect evidence for the FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. And, incidentally, the producers of the current, popular television show, CSI, call upon him for his expertise when insect evidence is involved in the plots.

Byrd is the current chairman of the American Board of Forensic Entomology, a body that promotes professionalism in the field. There currently are only seven members of the board, four of which have diplomat status – a status that’s based on extensive education and experience in forensic entomology. Byrd is one of the four. Worldwide, the board says there are only about five dozen scientists involved in forensic entomology.

Byrd traces his interest in the field back to when he was growing up on a cattle and race horse farm in Florida’s Daytona Beach area. Occasionally, one of the prize animals would die, and the young Byrd noted even then the progression of the maggots and flies on the carcasses and how that progression might be used to determine when the animal died.

"I knew since the sixth grade that this was what I wanted to do," he said.