• Question: Scenario: Unmarked burials are found, they are surrounded by unexploded mines from the Rose War. Two freshly dug graves are also present. A car is found 20 metres away from the scene and has blood enough for five victims in two metal 'coffins' in the jeep. Grisly. Your called upon the scene, how would your job help with solving this crime?

    Asked by bones to Niamh, Kat, Jodie, Jamie on 21 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Niamh Nic Daeid

      Niamh Nic Daeid answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hi bones

      I’m not sure I can answer this one for you… 🙂

    • Photo: Jamie Pringle

      Jamie Pringle answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hello bones, do you mean the War of the Roses? i.e. the English Civil War of the 1600s? I doubt it from the car scenario that you describe.

      1) The UXOs will be a problem which will need to be dealt with first by a trained Police/Army team.
      2) Im not sure how you came to the conclusion that there were five victims from the amount of blood? Remember the average amount in a human is 9L, which is a lot! I guess the forensics boys would carefully analyse the blood for DNA to work out how many victims there are.
      3) If there are freshly dug graves, then it should be relatively easy to use GPR again to see if any objects are present.
      4) I presume Kat would also look at the bugs to attempt to determine a PMI?
      5) the forensic archaeologists would then move in and do some excavated of the presumed burials.

      Nice!

Comments

  • Photo: bones

    bones commented on :

    Yeah, ancient bodies from War of the Roses, surrounded by WW1 mines. To add, there’s new victims, 5 is a estimate as we’ve called you in! but there is a lot of blood and 2 graves.

    • Photo: Jamie

      Jamie commented on :

      Hi bones,

      I dont want to be picky but obviously the War of the Roses was in England and most of WW1 battlefields were in Europe! You could argue the Axis forces dropped aerial mines in the UK I guess.

      Actually Im presently doing a search for a mass grave for Cheshiremen that were buried on the night of the Battle of Blore Heath in 1459 (http://www.bloreheath.org/). The theory goes that all the men from Cheshire (from both sides) were transported away from the battle (in Shropshire) and buried in Cheshire land. It’s a bit tricky as after such a long time, there may be no bones left! Makes a good undergraduate student project though 🙂

  • Photo: bones

    bones commented on :

    And, they could be mines put there by the english during ww2 to stop the enemy invading :).