She explains, “If the zombie’s face is eaten away, we can rely on video, computer-aided, or photographic superimposition. This includes techniques for positioning, matching relative size, adjusting for distortion, features used for comparison, and defining the limits for a possible match. In other words, proportion is the key. What happens here is that a photograph of the victim antemortem (‘after death’) is positioned over a skull that is rotated to the approximate identical position in the photograph. This overlay goes through a series of steps to blend the photo and the skull into one matching image.”
Santlofer says, “If there was no one who had ever seen the zombie then the best way would be to unearth the zombie’s skull, let bugs gnaw off the flesh then put it in an acid bath. After that a forensic artist would get to work reconstructing the zombie’s face out of clay on top of the skull. It’s a slow process of figuring out tissue depth and careful measurement of bone. My guess is that a zombie’s head would be a lot less fleshy than a living breathing healthy human being so that would have to be taken into account.”
Forensic artist Louis Michael Sanders says, “Outbreaks involving violence of this kind—savage attacks, biting, infection—these would get a lot of attention very quickly. Very, very quickly, and there would be a lot of resources applied to the situation. Long before the authorities either realized or released information that the dead were rising they would know that the disease caused disintegration of the skin and disfigurement similar to that of postmortem decomposition. Now, your scenario of an attack near a suburban medical research facility would at least suggest a connection between the location of the attack and the nature of the business itself. On-the-job contamination would immediately be suspected. Many companies these days have employee records on their computers that include photo IDs. One of the first things that would be done would be to get someone of authority to check employee records for someone who fits the description of the attacker. If we’re talking a white male of such-and-such a height and weight, that will eliminate a lot of the employees—all of the women, the shorter and thinner employees, the ethnic employees. If the remaining photo images were given to detectives they, with or without the assistance of a forensic artist, could make a connection.”
What if the zombie in question already had significant facial decomposition?
“That’s not that much of a problem,” Sanders says, “because there are certain things that won’t change. It’s the same when considering a suspect wearing a disguise, or even one that has had some facial reconstruction. Generally the ears will be the same, and if not exactly the same due to damage or surgery, then their exact position on the head relative to cheekbones, eyes, and other referential points. It’s a matter of math and geometry to come up with certain markers that we can rely on. Plus, a forensic artist can take a photo or description of a zombie and fairly easily de-zombify them to get an approximation of that person’s pre-infection face. If we can reconstruct the faces of three thousand year old mummies a zombie is a snap.”
Campbell agrees. “We can also take the original photo of an employee who fits the basic description and zombify him. This technique for aging is often referred to as ‘fugitive updates,’ when the police have a mug shot that is 5 or 10 years old and the case is renewed, the artist needs to ‘age’ the photo in a drawing. Knowledge of cranial facial growth is necessary.”
Sanders sums it all up by saying, “Considering that finding the ‘patient zero’ is key to saving the planet, this is one of those times where forensic artists could well be the heroes of the piece.”
JUST THE FACTS
Forensic Toxicology
Toxicology is the study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms; and forensic toxicology takes that a step farther to see how it applies to crime. The forensic toxicologist uses analytical chemistry to locate and identify foreign and presumably hazardous chemicals and substances in the body. These substances, or toxins, can be anything that poses a threat to health or life. Toxins include poisons, cleaning products, spoiled food, insect bites, pesticides, medicines, industrial chemicals, and many others; and these may have been inhaled, ingested, introduced via a wound, or absorbed through the skin.
Many of the zombie stories raise the possibility of contamination by toxic waste to be the cause of zombie reanimation. Discovering the identity of a toxin of this type is complicated. Not only will the zombie be uncooperative (just try to get one to pee into a cup), but many substances change once they are in the human body. If the zombie was created by a person becoming contaminated by one or more chemicals, then by the time that human had undergone the process of mutation or change the original substance may no longer be detectable; or may no longer be detectable as the culprit.
As you’ll see, there is some scientific evidence to support the possibility of a toxic zombie; but the problem is that this toxic effect would not be transmissible through a bite.
Expert Witness
According to Dr. Charles Amuzzie, a consultant associated with the African Society for Toxicological Sciences, “Do not confuse toxic effects with side effects. They are not the same thing. A side effect is not life threatening. Itchy skin, dry mouth, blurred vision—these are side effects. When you are talking about life-threatening symptoms you are talking about toxic effects, and these are most often produced by a dangerous metabolite of the substance being activated by an enzyme. Or perhaps by biotransformation, which is when enzymes cause a chemical alteration of a substance within the body. There are three kinds of toxic reactions: Genotoxic, which create benign or malignant tumors (called neoplasms); Pathological, which cause injury to the liver; and Pharmacological, which adversely affect the central nervous system (CNS).”
He points out that, “Toxic effects are destructive to the CNS, and for your zombie scenario you are probably looking for something that super-activates the CNS. A toxin can certainly kill, but it will not resurrect the dead.”
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All the World’s a Toxin…
Toxie Ghoul by Peter Mihaichuk
In his book, The Archidoxes of Magic, Swiss physician and alchemist Paracelsus (1493–1541) wrote: “All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison and a remedy.”
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However Raymond Singer, Ph.D., a nationally known expert witness on cases involving neuropsychology and neurobehavioral toxicology, says that there might be some basis for the suspension of disbelief in zombie films that have a “toxic waste contamination” plot. “It’s not a bad theory. People with this type of poisoning are alive in some senses, but dead in the finer aspects of being a human. Depending upon the case, they could go into states of automatic rage. I kinda doubt cannibalism—unless that is or was part of their culture.”
When I asked Dr. Singer to provide any examples of toxic chemicals turning someone into a soulless monster, he provided this anecdote. “I served as an expert witness in a murder trial of a confessed mass murderer, who heinously slaughtered a mother and her children while they were sleeping in their bedrooms. The prosecution wanted the death penalty—which if applied anywhere, could have been applied in this case most deservedly. After carefully reviewing the killer’s background and history in depth, and examining him personally in the maximum security facility, I concluded that his long history of exposure to toxic chemicals, including playing many idyll days as a youth in ‘Shit River’—eponymously named because of widespread pollution from toxic waste—led to the creation of a monster, a zombie, who lacked the normal human ability to control hateful impulses.
“Toxic waste and other chemicals can damage the nervous system, leading to disruptions in the ability to control, plan, manage and judge—what neuropsychologists call ‘executive function.’ In this case, his executive function failed to control his hatred for the woman and her children. Basically, he was insane and deranged, in part from toxic chemical poisoning of his youth. The jury took my words into con
sideration, and gave him life without parole. The killer was animated when he committed these crimes, but he had been dead inside.”
Now that’s frightening.
The Zombie Factor
In order for “toxic zombies” to work, the contamination would have to do more than alter behavior. It would have to shut down most of the body’s functions while isolating and preserving a few (minimal brain, heart, and lung activity, etc.). Toxins are dangerous, but they are not parasitic; and though contamination can be passed on, it diminishes in strength with each contact and would not be something that could be passed on through a bite. A major outbreak would require a large number of persons becoming similarly contaminated at the same time and exhibiting behavioral changes at about the same rate, which isn’t as likely. Similarities in symptomology occur more often in disease pathogens.
JUST THE FACTS
Forensic Entomology
One of the creepiest (or perhps crawliest) fields within evidence analysis is that of forensic entomology, which is the study of insects as they relate to police work. Many insects are necrophageous (meaning they “eat corpses”), and the study of them can help to establish the time that has elapsed since death, or the PMI (post mortem interval).
Forensic entomology is an old science, dating back to at least thirteenth-century China; however it’s become a very widely accepted science mostly over the last twenty years or so. Though there are a number of subspecialties within forensic entomology, medico-legal forensic entomology is the specialty involving the study of insects as they relate to criminal and legal matters.
A forensic entomologist is generally called in for cases where the decedent is believed to have died at least seventy-two hours ago, which is when insect presence is significantly seen and the age of newborn insects (such as maggots) from eggs laid on the body postmortem can help the entomologist begin his or her calculations. Flies typically arrive within a few minutes of death, attracted by protein-rich body fluids and to lay their eggs. They lay eggs and their maggot hatchlings feed on the necrotic tissue. As the process of decomposition kicks in, the body releases a variety of chemicals, including putrescine and cadaverine, both of which contribute to the ripe odor of decaying flesh and act as attractants to the insects that form such a necessary part of the natural breakdown of organic matter. Without this process no corpses would ever decay and we’d be hip deep in the unrotting dead. Necrophageous flies include blowflies, fleshflies, houseflies, coffin flies, sun flies, black soldier flies, and cheese flies.
Mites often come along next, feeding on the drying flesh and also dining on the fly eggs. If there are enough mites on hand and they consume a considerable portion of the fly eggs, there will be fewer maggots and, therefore, less tissue consumption, which can significantly interfere with the forensic entomologist’s attempts to estimate the normal rate of decay and hence the length of time the body has been dead. Establishing approximate time and date of death is often a crucial factor in police work.
Beetles prefer drier flesh and usually come along after the decomposition process is moderately far along. These include rove beetles, hister beetles, carrion beetles, carcass beetles, hide beetles, scarab beetles, and sap beetles.
Moths often attend the feast, dining on human hair. It’s mostly clothes moths that do this (which is something to think about next time you find one in your closet).
Other critters often found on corpses include bees, ants, and wasps. These creatures are not there to feed on the corpse but are predators who attack and eat the necrophageous insects. Just as with the mites, this can interfere with PMI calculations.
The forensic entomologist is an expert on the life cycle of these insects and by evaluating the apparent age of maggots, beetles, and mites, he or she can often make a determination of how long the body has been dead.
Expert Witness
Forensic entomologist Dr. Robert Hall, associate vice chancellor for research at the University of Missouri, discusses how the presence of these insects helps in establishing time of death: “There are two basic approaches. First is the temperature dependent development of flies (the warmer it is, the faster they develop, within limits). Knowing that blow flies arrive very soon after death, if the temperature prevailing at the crime scene can be inferred from proximate weather stations, then knowing the species of blow fly and the stage collected, it’s possible to calculate how long it would have required for the species in question to progress from the stage the female deposits on the corpse (egg or first instar larva) to the stage collected. This represents the ‘must have been dead at least as long’ estimate called the ‘minimum postmortem interval.’ The second approach is to collect all insects associated with a corpse; these ‘assemblages’ of arthropods may then be compared with decomposition studies conducted under similar environmental and geographic conditions and the time-since-death inferred from a ‘presence or absence’ analysis that refers to the aforementioned studies.”
Occasionally the type of insect can give clues to where the body might have been—as in cases where a victim is killed in one state and the body carried across state lines for burial—a tactic sometimes used by serial killers. Dr. Hall gives us an example. “Some blow fly species are found only in the far southern U.S. When a corpse is found in, say, North Dakota, and infested with a southern species, it’s pretty significant evidence that corpse was dead within the southern range of that species and subsequently transported north. Although this doesn’t happen often, it does occasionally.”
Insects don’t set up camp on a corpse by accident. They’re actually part of nature’s process of decomposition, as Dr. Hall explains. “Maggots are a powerful eating machine. ‘Maggot mass’ refers to the large number of writhing maggots that actually—by friction—generate heat above ambient temperature. These squirming maggot masses consume tissue and can disarticulate skeletons. They’re the ‘buzzards’ of the insect world.”
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Maggot Therapy
For thousands of years healers (licensed or not) have used the placement of maggots on wounds as a method of preventing gangrene. Maggots will not eat healthy living tissue and will feed only on dead (necrotic) tissue. Soldiers in war would sometimes apply a poultice of maggots to a festering wound to clean it up. In more controlled circumstances, the maggots were disinfected first.
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The Zombie Factor
Italian horror director Lucio Fulci (and many of his peers) was fond of using masses of maggots in his zombie flicks. In House by the Cemetery (1981) a zombie “bled” maggots after being stabbed. I wondered if insects would colonize a dead body that was walking around and put that question to Dr. Hall.
“I have no idea whether zombies ‘decay’ as human corpses do, but the medical condition called myiasis16 refers to infestation of a living body with the blow flies normally associated with corpses. Most living humans move, and thus movement itself is not a complete barrier to blow fly females laying eggs.”
This isn’t that big a stretch when you consider that humans typically wave flies away, and a zombie would be indifferent to their presence. They could very easily land and lay eggs, and the hatching maggots would have plenty of necrotic tissue upon which to feed. It would be the undead equivalent to a dinner cruise, or maybe an ambulatory “meals on wheels.”
THE FINAL VERDICT: THE CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATORS
The amount of information that can be collected is amazing, and all that the forensic investigators can glean from that evidence is truly staggering. Because we live in a computer age and the Internet is a reality of our lives, investigators can share information via databases and e-mail, they can instantly contact with other experts around the world, and they can bring to bear such a weight of technology that our poor mindless zombies don’t seem to have much of a chance.
Fingerprints, blood analysis, bite mark analysis, forensic art and anthropology, toxicology and entomology, footprints, and gait patterns…any one of these elements might
identify our patient zero and help investigators backtrack to a possible source of contagion while at the same time hunting down the zombie/vector.
This is an area seldom if ever addressed in zombie fiction, as if there would be no time to use forensics and nothing to be gained even if there was time. Slow, shuffling zombies are just not going to move faster than science geeks. Not going to happen.
On the Slab
Medical Science Examines the Living Dead
Zombie Autopsy by Zach McCain
Science cannot exist in the absence of logic. Science depends on both theory and evidence. If the recent dead came back to life, there must be a reason, and that reason will have to be grounded in science.
In Night of the Living Dead Romero insists that “something” has caused all the recent human dead to return to life. He includes in this buried corpses, subjects of autopsies, accident victims—the works. Whereas this is extremely cool and cinematically very threatening, it makes no scientific sense at all. In order for humans to move, certain parts of the central nervous system have to be working. Any other explanation is magic, and Romero never intended his films to be supernatural.
So, we’re going to make a couple of deductions. First, if the dead rose, then this would have to be the result of some kind of pathogen. No other explanation really stands up to scientific scrutiny. Epidemics start from a source, are spread by a vector, and then increase exponentially as long as the vector(s) continue to make infectious contact with victims.