Posted on April 17, 2002 at 3:00 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — A federal grant awarded to the UAB Department of Justice Sciences will help researchers to learn more about how insects like maggots can be used to pinpoint a homicide victim’s time of death.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions announced this week during a press conference that the Department of Justice Sciences had been awarded a federal research grant of nearly $220,000 from the Justice Department’s Office of Justice Programs. Sessions is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department. The grant comes in the wake of recent federal efforts to upgrade state forensic science laboratories. Congressional legislation passed in 2000 authorized the establishment of a program to improve state and local crime labs and to reduce evidence backlogs.

“I remain convinced that prompt and accurate scientific analysis for our law enforcement officers is one of the most pressing needs in our criminal justice system,” said Sessions. “This grant will further enhance UAB’s reputation as one of the best forensic research laboratories in America.”

Forensic scientist Jeffrey D. Wells, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Justice Sciences who specializes in forensic entomology, and fellow researcher Lynn LaMotte Ph.D., a professor of applied statistics at Louisiana State University, have developed statistical models to use maggots’ growth on a corpse to pinpoint time of death. With the federal grant, the researchers will now be able to test their theories. Wells said they want to be able to pinpoint the time of death within a four-hour window. This would help in cases when a body is found several days after a murder.

“As anyone who watches television shows like “Crime Scene Investigation” knows,” said Wells, “the insects that are attracted to a corpse may provide useful evidence concerning the time of death. This is particularly true if the victim has been dead for more than a few days, however, there is room for improvement.

“Right now,” said Wells, “an investigator may conclude, just to pick a number, that a corpse has most likely been dead for seven days. That’s the best estimate. Is a time of death of six days then out of the question? How about eight days? Where exactly would one draw the line? This is the sort of problem that is best solved by using statistical analysis. …”

Wells said he anticipates that the research will “almost immediately make such analysis more useful to crime investigators, thereby strengthening the performance and credibility of our justice system.”