Jamie Keefer

“I'm sure the makers of Downy would be pleased to know that their product makes even mummified human skin soft and fragrant. ”
― Bill Bass, Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales

“Some scientists thrive on the conceptual; their minds can envision particles that the most powerful microscopes can’t show us; processes that can’t be directly observed, but only inferred, guessed at, by interpreting a stew of complex biochemical by-products. I am not one of these scientists; I need bones and teeth, things I can see with my eyes and grasp with my hands. Jason Eshleman, on the other hand, can see with his mind’s eye, grasping the complex interactions of the most complex molecules in the body, DNA.”
― William M. Bass, Beyond the Body Farm: A Legendary Bone Detective Explores Murders, Mysteries, and the Revolution in Forensic Science

“surprisingly dramatic glow some minerals gave off when illuminated with ultraviolet light, or “black light.” In daylight, for instance, the mineral fluorite is a drab, chalky color; in a dark room under UV light, though, fluorite glows a brilliant blue; the mineral calcite shines bright red; and aragonite gives off a neon green. If you’ve ever stepped into a teenager’s cavelike room decorated with black-light posters (less common now than they were in the 1970s, when my three sons were growing up), you’ve seen another version of UV fluorescence in action.”
― William M. Bass, Beyond the Body Farm: A Legendary Bone Detective Explores Murders, Mysteries, and the Revolution in Forensic Science

“We’re organisms; we’re conceived, we’re born, we live, we die, and we decay. But as we decay we feed the world of the living: plants and bugs and bacteria.”
― Bill Bass, Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales