Corpse: Nature, Forensics, and the Struggle to Pinpoint Time of Death

jessica snyder sachs

In this book, Sachs accompanies an eccentric group of entomologists, anthropologists, biochemists, and botanists - a new kind of biological "Mod Squad" - on some of their grisliest, most intractable cases. She takes us to the ultra-bizarre Body Farm in Knoxville, Tennessee, where scientists watch bodies decay in order to learn the secrets of decomposition and death. She also takes us into the courtroom, where "post-O. J." forensic science as a whole is coming under fire and the new multidisciplinary art of forensic ecology is struggling to establish its credibility." In the end, Sachs reveals death to be not a single moment in time, but an elaborate dance, as insects and microbes colonize a corpse, and efficiently - even gracefully - return it to the earth. The story of the 2000-year search to pinpoint time of death. Corpse is also the terrible and beautiful story of what happens to our bodies when we die.

Genres nonfictionsciencedeathtrue crimehistorymedicinecrimemedicalreferenceresearch

270 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,2001

This edition

Format: 270 pages, Paperback
Published: October 1, 2002 by Basic Books
ISBN: 9780738207711
ASIN: 0738207713
Language: English

About the author

jessica snyder sachs

Jessica Snyder Sachs is a contributing editor to Popular Science and writes regularly for Discover, National Wildlife, Health, Parenting, and other national publications. Prior to becoming a full-time freelance writer in 1991, she was the managing editor of Science Digest.

As an adjunct professor, Jessica teaches feature writing and writing for magazines, most recently at Seton Hall University. She has taught at the graduate level as part of New York University's Science and Environmental Reporting Program (SERP).

She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School, where she completed a mid-career masters with cross-disciplinary graduate studies in immunology, microbiology, and infectious disease. She lives with her husband and daughter in New Jersey.