MURDER detectives finally have a reliable way to determine how long a victim has been dead from their bones, as well as glean valuable information about where the person lived.
Stuart Black, an environmental geochemist at the University of Reading, is pioneering a technique similar to carbon dating, but that uses isotopes of other elements. He has just finished his first case. From the charred remains of a man who was repeatedly stabbed and then set on fire, he determined that the victim was probably from the former Soviet Union and had been dead about a week. “While that doesn’t…
