"Bones yield secrets to her"
The Cincinnati Post
05/07/1999

Post Staff Report

Police gave Beth Murray a skull and asked her what she could find out about it. Dr. Murray saw no teeth and discovered marks on bones that indicated the teeth had been pulled. Probably with pliers.  Probably to hinder identification. She found skull wounds that most likely were made with a large, serrated machete.  It was the start of a difficult investigation that eventually led to identification of victim and the arrest of a murder suspect.

Another time, police showed Dr. Murray a torso - no legs, arms or head — and asked her for identification clues. Dr. Murray measured the spinal cord and extrapolated from a mathematical formula that the victim was tall. She examined joints in the pelvis and between vertebrae and found traces of arthritis that indicated the victim was a middle-aged adult. Wear and tear on joints revealed the victim had done a lot of manual labor. That led to identification of the victim — a tall, middle-aged construction worker — and the arrest of a murder suspect.

Dr. Murray is a rare breed – a forensic anthropologist.  She applies scientific techniques of physical anthropology to identify human remains that are decomposed, burned or reduced to skeletons, and to help solve crimes. The assistant professor of biology at the College of Mount St. Joseph recently became only the 59th person to be certified by the Board of Forensic Anthropology. Besides teaching, Dr. Murray has been a consultant in more than a 100 cases of body and skeletal identification for police and coroners.

“The expertise and ability she brings to a case is very valuable” says Butler County Sheriff department Capt.. Anthony Dwyer. “As investigators, we’re not equipped to make some of forensic evaluations she does”
“She can look at some bones and within seconds tell you a lot about them. She’s always been right on the mark with accuracy. She’s very sharp, very professional. She knows exactly what she is talking about. Her help is immeasurable.”

Dr. Murray, 40, of Bridgetown, a 1976 graduate of Seton High School with degrees from the University of Cincinnati and the College of Mount St. Joseph, says she never set out to be a forensic anthropologist. Her varied interests — and curiosity —gradually led her to it. “I was always interested in science and medicine and law and this kind of combines all those fields,” she said. “I always loved a good puzzle, using analytical and scientific methods to solve It. Every case I’m involved in becomes its own puzzle.”

As a college student. Dr. Murray was fascinated in science classes by skeletons. “Most people have the Halloween image of a skeleton, that it’s very static and the same for everybody,” she said. “In fact, it’s not. We carry our whole life in our skeleton — who we are and what we do.  Lifestyle differences can be detected in our skeletons.”

Dr. Murray says she augments her teaching career with consulting work — even though it means getting calls from police detectives at3 AM —because she likes “real life applications of academic study.”

“I don’t like the Ivory Tower stereotype of learning just for the sake of learning,” she said. “I like to take what I know and apply it to help the community.” Most of Dr. Murray’s cases involve examining decomposed, dismembered or badly burned bodies, as well as bones. “I’m called in for situations where the traditional autopsy can’t be performed,” she said. “The hardest part is nailing down how long the body has been there. “There are so many factors to consider — weather, exposure to insects and animals. Was the body on the ground, underground, in the water, in the trunk of a car?”

Dr. Murray says her most difficult assignment was to Identify bodies of 68 people killed in the crash of an American Eagle airplane in 1994 in Indiana. “Personally and professionally, it was very challenging,” she said.... I did everything I could to make sure that families received the proper remains.”