Strange Forensics | Explorer

[sirens blaring]

NARRATOR: In a post-9/11 world, the field of forensic science has become more urgent and important than ever. Deaths related to global terrorism have spiked. And in 2015 alone, more than 29,000 people were killed as a result of terrorist attacks. The pervasive threat of mass casualty terror attacks demands new innovations in forensics, especially when it comes to how we investigate large-scale blast sites. Samples of these could be taken and sent for DNA analysis.

NARRATOR: Kim Moran is an instructor at Arcadia University who works with FBI agents, police, bomb squads, and forensic scientists on how to best respond to the aftermath of a bombing. When a blast happens, it's so important to be able to identify all the victims that are involved so that we can return those remains back to the family. In terms of personal effects, people wear very kind of easily-to-distinguish jewelry, so this could really help identify the individual.

NARRATOR: Debris from a blast can also be used to identify the perpetrator, a crucial first step in identifying any links to terror organizations. But before this evidence gets to the lab, it has to be collected in the field. And training for that is where the challenges of living in a radically new world lead to some radical new solutions. [music playing]

I've come to Pennsylvania to shadow Kim as she takes students through her unorthodox approach to learning the intricacies of post-blast investigation. We're in a parking lot, and a group of students are dressing dead animals up behind us.

What's happening?

We have a bus today where we're sending a charge, and we have a number of passengers on that vehicle. We can't use human cadavers. Yes. And this is our next best thing, previously-deceased animals. So these are the passengers, essentially.

These are the passengers. Using a mannequin, it's just not going to be affected by the blast in the same way as an actual biological entity. It's really important for first responders to have really the full realistic experience of going out to a post-blast investigation with the sights and the smells and the sounds that would happen for a real incident, such as this.

The smells are real.

The smells are very real, yes. [music playing]

NARRATOR: To mimic real-world evidence-gathering, the students create a fake identity for each animal.

This is Madison Kelly.

Wow. You literally put lipstick on a pig.

We did.

NARRATOR: And outfit them accordingly. The personal effects that we're including will help the responders positively identify the individuals. Some of the stuff that would seem a little absurd about what's happening behind us, that's actually happening because you are trying as much as possible to recreate--

Exactly. Family members are going to see something happen on television, and they are going to wonder if their son or daughter or husband or wife was involved in any way.

What is this? A sheep?

She's actually an expecting mother.

Ah. I knew I hated this one. OK. [music playing]

NARRATOR: As the day swings into gear, the students load up the animals and put them in place on the bus at the blast site.

What are you moving?

I'm trying to move its butt.

NARRATOR: A 3D scanner is also on hand to map the site before and after the blast. It captures a million points a second as it scans, and it's able to deliver a very quick summary of what happened at that scene.

NARRATOR: But there's no experiment without an explosion. Enter the local bomb experts, who board the bus and set the explosive device.

So on one hand, we're here at the forefront of a pretty important experiment in modern day forensic science. On the other hand, I'm standing here in front of a school bus that's filled with dead farm animals dressed up in human clothes and they're about to be blown to [bleeping] smithereens.

[shouting] Three, two, one.

[explosion] [sirens blaring]

To the untrained eye, this is just pure and total chaos.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The search team must quickly sift through the rubble to mark any evidence that could help identify the animals on the bus, like body parts or personal effects—no matter how small.

From a cigarette butt, you could get a DNA profile.

NARRATOR: Even a stray piece of plastic could be a bomb fragment that may help identify the killer.

I don't of anything on a bus that looks like this.

NARRATOR: As the investigators work the ground, the 3D scanner provides a detailed study of where each piece of evidence originated and where it ended up. Finally, the bodies are removed from the site, and the evidence is collected to send to the lab.

Experiments like this are really important because not something that people see on a daily basis, but it's going to happen. We just don't know when, we don't know where, so we need to be prepared for it.

NARRATOR: Because when an incident like this does happen, the skills these students are learning become the crucial tools that can provide critical, real-time answers to both law enforcement and victims' families.

[music playing]