EITM: Emily Rancourt 11/15/24

The Assistant Director and Professor for the George Mason University Forensic Science Program.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Elliott. This is Emily.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Emily what.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Professor Emily Rancourt from the George Mason University Body Farm.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, how are you?

Speaker 1 (00:13):
I'm doing well?

Speaker 3 (00:14):
How are you?

Speaker 4 (00:15):
I am doing great. Somebody was pretending to be you earlier.
That's why I'm questioning.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
So yes, I heard the imposter.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Oh very good, very good. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (00:25):
Let me Emily well, first of all, thank you very
much for calling, and I want to apologize to you.
I had no idea that Mason had a body farm.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yes, it is absolutely fascinating. This was a dream of
mine ever since. I was a crime scene investigator with
the Princeton County Police Department. Right, so, I used to
work for the police, and then in twenty ten George
Mason asked me to come on board and start their
forensic science. So we launched our Masters of Forensic Science,

(01:03):
and then in twenty eleven we launched our Bachelor of Science.
And so now we have somewhere around six hundred students
in our programs. We have a lot of students, and
in twenty twenty one we were granted approval. I mean
this took years, as you can imagine. In twenty twenty
one we were granted approval to have a body farm

(01:26):
on the science and Technology campus of George Mason, And
it was just this past May of twenty twenty four
that we placed our first two donors out at the
body farm. So the first donor was buried and the
second donor on the same day was a surface donor.
And then a little while ago, just a few weeks ago,

(01:47):
we were able to place our third donor. And you
might be surprised to know that we have about a
dozen pre registered donors, so people who have already filled
out the PaperWorks that are waiting and at the time
of their death, we will be notified and it's their
final wish and their final dream to live out their legacy,
to give back to science and to help investigators and police.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
Which, by the way, I think it's awesome, right And
I'm I don't know that if you listen every day,
you may have missed a show here or there of listening.
The I'm obsessed with like this is I could be
totally obsessed with this.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
And it was years ago.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
I remember talking about body farms, which is why I
was shocked, and I didn't know that one had one
had opened here, But like just the and I'm not
I'm not obsessed with body farms from the from the
idea of like there's just like dead people laying there,
But it is, it's it's the whole, Like.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
You said, it's the forensics. It's the studying of it.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
Like if what does a body look like that's been
laying in the woods, What does a body look like
that's half submerged.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
What does a body look like that is submerged. What
is the time on it?

Speaker 4 (02:55):
What is it like during the winter, what is it
like during the summer, What is it like if there's
animals around, if there's bugs around, Like what is the
breakdown of the body?

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Which are all things that you would use as if you.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
Were working in forensic to help determine what happened to
somebody's loved one in death. And it's just the science
of it. And listen, I know nothing about science, but
the science of it is so fascinating to me.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
No, you're absolutely right. And as a matter of fact,
we are the eighth. So there's only eleven body firms
and we are the eighth one, and we are the
only body farm in the mid Atlantic region. And the
reason why this is important is because of all of
those things you just said. So we don't know in
the mid Atlantic region the time since death of these

(03:42):
bodies that are in all of those different situations, and
so that is the research that we are conducting out
at the Body Farm. So right now we're getting our
baseline research, and so we're just seeing the timeline of death,
you know, in very underground on the surface. And then
once we have about two dozen donors or so, all

(04:02):
of those cool things that you had mentioned that are
real cases. These are things that are actually happening that
investigators are investigating. I just had a death investigator from
Fairfax Police reach out to me about a case that
she had, and she said, we have to do this
because we now have this victim and we don't know
how long they've been out in this woods. Sure, we

(04:24):
don't have that data. And when you're talking about stuff
like this, you know, we always say that we can
never bring closure to a family, but we can give
them answers. And that is why we're doing this very
important research. And we're compiling all of this data so
that we can share it with law enforcement, and law
enforcement can then in turns give back to these families.

(04:46):
You know, those questions that they don't have answers to
will haunt them for the rest of their life, and
that's what we're trying to help. We're also trying to
help with timelines. Sure, you know this is going to
blow your mind. But one of the things I'm doing
for research out there, which I assure you you've never
thought of this before.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Oh try me, try me.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Okay. We have thirty thousand honeybees that are located right
next to the farm, and these honey bees actually will
travel only three to five miles from their hives. And
so what we are doing at George Mason is this
is not new research finding stretch of imagination, because honeybees

(05:31):
have been used by systems biologists to determine where pesticides
and what specific types of pesticides are being used on crops.
But what we're doing is we have a chemist who's
retired from the FBI research, doctor Eckinroade, is trying to
isolate the volatile organic compounds. We refer to them as VOCs.

(05:52):
So what it is is it's literally the smell that
comes off of you from decomposing, and these vos just
go into the air and while the body is decomposing
in the ground, it's going into the roots, it's being
picked up by the flowers, and then these these little
crime fighters with wings are flying around. They're getting the

(06:14):
pollen and they're going back to their hives. And our
goal is to use these honey these honeybees and their
hives in order to triangulate where clandestine or buried dead
bodies might be located. You know, over the summer, there
was a case, and I'm sure you're familiar with it,

(06:35):
where a woman went missing and was purportedly murdered and
but believed to be out in the woods and search
teams spent hours upon hours and everybody's looking and nobody
can find or still haven't found a body to this day. Now,
if we could use those little crime fighters with wings,
those little honeybees, and you know how there are hives

(06:57):
located all over the place, sure we could try I
angulate where are those VOCs, where those balt or organic
compounds that are associated to only decomposing humans. If we
could use those, we could help to find victims so
much easier then back in the day when I was
working crime scenes and we get out to prinklyam County

(07:19):
forest and we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of acres.
And how do you find a body out there? You can't?

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah, right, sure, the and yes, I know, Can I
just sell Can I.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Just sell am though? Real quick? So when I had
jumped on, I heard you guys talking about the smell.
Oh yeah, so so just so that you guys are
all aware. And also the gentleman who called in about
his son, so he saw the front of the research facility.
So when you're on the path by the Edge program,

(07:52):
there is a sign it says Forensic Science Research and
Training Laboratory, and that is the entrance to the body farm.
But the body farm is five acres, and so in
the outer four acres is where we hold classes for
the George Mason University program, the Forensic Science program, and
we also have student research that is out there. You

(08:16):
have to go all the way into the depths of
the woods into the inner one acre, which is where
the humans are located. And that is nowhere near civilization. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (08:29):
But so like I can't smell my own bad breath
or like my own fart, so like there's you're just
immune to it.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
So you're funny, you know that could be true. I
will tell you that when I would go to autopsies
and we'd have a you know, a real stinky body,
I think because you're inside it definitely smell a lot worse.
There is something about being in this outdoor facility where
there is not that same type of a smell. I mean,

(08:58):
you think about being you have natural ventilation, and so
it isn't as bad. Now, what I will tell you
is that is I had a student this summer who
did research on three pigs. And we had a pig
that was clothed, a pig that was nude, and a
pig that was wrapped in carpet.

Speaker 4 (09:15):
Wait, hold on one second, hold on, hold on one second.
A pig that was clothed, like like you put jeans
on it.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
So we put well, you know, they're a little bit
harder to dress than you'd think because they're two hundred
pounds and they're big and they're fat. So we put
them in shorts and a T shirt. Right, dressed in
shorts and a T shirt.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
We'll call them Elliott.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
But so that was that to replicate like like a
not a huge Okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
That makes total sense to me.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
So that the pigs are what are used because they're,
you know, the closest to looking at the different types
of decomposition that occur over time as to the humans.
So pigs are typically used in this research. So we
have these three pigs there. They're each two hundred pounds.
Now that in June, which is when we placed them,

(10:06):
they smelled horrible. I had a student almost passed out
out there. I had a student almost vomit out there.
It was bad. I will admit that, even though I'm
pretty immune to the smell of death, that smelled really bad. Hey,
but are humans really to me? And You're right, maybe
it's just me. Maybe I'm just used to it and
I just can't smell it anymore. But there really was

(10:26):
not a pungent smell.

Speaker 4 (10:29):
So I want to ask you a couple of other questions.
By the way, I could listen to you talk all day.
Number one is, obviously, like you said, this is the
first one in the mid Atlantic, and it's at George Mason.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (10:43):
I don't know how big the field of people who
go to colleges and are looking to get into forensics
or study that or the science of it. But what
a huge This has to be a huge selling point
for Mason.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Oh Elliott, This is absolutely huge. We've seen our enrollment
increase recently. You know, The New York Times has been
interested in this. They came out and they interviewed us.
The Washington Post is interested. They came out and interested
interviewed us. I mean, the word is getting out that
we have this facility and the students who are very

(11:19):
much like I was. You know, my mom would tell
you that she knew I was going to get into
forensic science when I was four years old and I
was analyzing roadkill on the side of the road. She
knew this is what I was going to do, much
to her dismay, right, And you know, there are people
like you, there are people like me. We just find
this fascinating. And so there are students that are in
that same boat. And like I said, our program has grown.

(11:41):
We used to have We've started out the master's program
with a handful of students and now we have one
hundred students in the graduate program and we have over
five hundred in the undergraduate program.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
And the thing I'm so excited about is we are
bringing up the future and the future crime scene investigators
and death investigators and DNA analysts. I mean, these jobs
are so necessary so that we can fight crime and
that we can put the the suspects behind bars, and

(12:15):
that also we always you know, my my supervisor and boss,
doctor Mary Ellen O'Toole. She is also very intent on
making sure that everybody knows that we're also very interested
in making sure that the innocent go free, right because
how horrible to be convicted of a crime that you
didn't commit.

Speaker 4 (12:34):
Hey, can I ask you this? Like you're I'm not kidding.
I could talk to you all day. Are you a
cool professor?

Speaker 1 (12:41):
No?

Speaker 2 (12:41):
No, you know what I mean, Like you could find.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
A teah bitch big they're pretty high.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
But you know what I was going to.

Speaker 4 (12:50):
Say, like, this is it is. It's it's such a
rarity in the area. And I'm sure it's not like, oh,
who'd you get for English? Like you're you're you're kind
of like a pioneer on your own. It would be
it would be horrible for kids that are interested in
it or students that are interested in it to want
to get into that field.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Who are who are like you?

Speaker 4 (13:12):
But then you end up with a professor where it's like,
oh my god, this is horrible, but it sounds like
like you can hear your passion for it.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
I assume that's what taking a class with you is, Like.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yes, Elliott, you're absolutely right. And as a matter of fact,
it's not just me. That's the amazing thing about George
Mason University. Every single one of our professors has either
been in the field of forensic science or as an
adjunct it's still currently working in the field of forensic science.
And you know what we're able to bring to the classroom.

(13:46):
I'm putting up photographs and I'm telling case study stories
about cases that I actually worked that I was actually there,
boots on the ground, and I'm walking my students through
my crime teams. So that's that's what George Mason is
able to bring to students.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
That's aweso.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
It is beyond the classroom, and every single one of
our professors does that in their classroom. So yes, I'd
like to say that I'm a cool professor, but it
is the entire forensic science program. I mean, the director
of our program is a retired FBI profiler. She has
worked every prolific serial killer case known to man. Talk

(14:24):
about her class in critical thinking. You know, can you
imagine sitting in her classroom, the woman who's talked to
all these serial killers and actually learning how to think
analytically like an FBI profiler. I mean, it blows my mind.
I just feel so fortunate to be a professor in
this program because yes, I am passionate about this, but

(14:45):
so are the other nine full time faculty and the
couple doesn't adjunct faculty that we have.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Because you know what's weird like, and I'm sure not
all of them are. Like I could never I was
talking about this last break. I don't think I could
ever be the person I know. I can't that goes
into a crime scene and looks at it. I mentioned
I have a friend who works for the FBI, and
she goes in and like to active crime scenes. I

(15:12):
could I can't do that, Like death really bothers me.
I couldn't walk in and see that. But that's also
not the only job that's affiliated with doing forensics. But
all that being said, I would The idea of visiting
a body farm is fascinating to me, but I think
it's because I'm not I'm not trying to solve a crime,
and I'm not I'm not seeing somebody who was just

(15:34):
brutally murdered. I'm there seeing the science behind it. I
think I could separate myself like that.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Yes, and so that is exactly you know, what you
said is exactly how I had felt about death. So
I have and I told my supervisor this the other day.
There was always something when I was younger. I had
this eerie, spooky feeling that I was going to be
murdered by a serial killer. And it terrified me. The

(16:04):
thought of me being captured, tortured, kept alive. You know,
there are things worse than death, and then finally brutally murdered.
I had always had these thoughts as a young child,
which is, you know, very very odd. You know, if
you think about a seven year old child. I have
an eight year old daughter, and I hope that she
doesn't have this type of nightmares. But I would tell

(16:25):
my parents about this, and I was scared to death.
And to me, knowledge is power. That's why I went
to the library and checked out thirty six books on
serial killers. My mom actually got a phone call from
the Arlington Heights Library saying, you know, we're a little
bit concerned because your daughter just checked out all these
books on serial killers. And she's like, oh, I know,

(16:45):
I know, she's just interested in this. And I told
her she couldn't read the People magazine because around that time,
Jeffrey Dahmer was terrorizing the Midwest, right, you remember the
Jeffrey Dahmer case, And yes, exactly. And so I was
ten years old at that time, living in the Midwest,
and I was terrified. So to me, knowledge is power.

(17:06):
And one thing I've always told my students is the
very first time I went to see an autopsy, I
was terrified. But I had to prove to my parents
that I wasn't going to go and get this graduate degree,
spend all this money and then get to a crime
scene and see a dead body and then say, Okay,
I'm not doing this anymore. And so I went. While
I was going to Purdue University, I went and I

(17:28):
viewed an autopsy. And the very first time, I thought
I'd be able to just like hide behind my fingers
and peer at the dead body and watch what they
were doing. But the day I arrived, and remember this
was before hippa. This is a long time ago before HIPPA,
and so people used to be able to just go
in and see autopsies. And I'm period, I'm getting to
the door. It's in the basement of the Vet building

(17:50):
at Purdue University and the doctor opens the door at
five am and he's all excited. Me said, hey, it's
your lucky day. And I said, oh why, and he said, well,
my nurse called in sick today, so not only do
you get to view the autopsy, you get to help me.
And so I walk in there and I'm thinking, oh
my gosh, my mom was right, there's no way I
can do this. So I was having all those thoughts

(18:11):
that you had, Elliott, like, I can't do this, There's
no way I can do this right. And the next
thing I know, I have the apron on, I have
the gloves on, I have the mask on, and the
doctor is handing me this gentleman's kidney and I'm placing
it in the scale and I'm writing the weight on
the board. And then he's handing me his right lung
and he's left lung, and I'm taking all these organs

(18:32):
and I'm holding him in my hands, and especially the brain.
When he placed the brain in my hands, and I thought,
this guy was just having thoughts hours before. This is insane,
and I'm placing it into the scale and I'm writing
the weights on the board and I'm helping the doctor.
And when it's all done, he said to me, so,
what did you think? And I said, well, I'm a

(18:53):
little disturbed. And he said, oh, every time somebody sees
an autopsy for the first time, they're always disturbed. And
I said, no, I'm disturbed because this is the coolest
thing I have ever seen in my entire life, and
I know I want to do this for the rest
of my life. That's why I was disturbed. And you
know what he said to me. He said that when

(19:14):
your curiosity is greater than your fear, you can do anything.
And that is just something I've carried with me for
the rest of my life. You'd be surprised that you
could do because your curiosity is greater than your fear. Oh.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
I like that a lot. I like that.

Speaker 4 (19:29):
I mean, that's a lot of words that I won't remember,
but I like that. That's a great saying. All right,
So last two things. Last two things, doctor Emily. Number one,
I don't know, like when you said, like you put
like shorts and a T shirt like on the pigs.
Can I give you a bunch of Elliot in the
Morning T shirts to put on the pigs?

Speaker 3 (19:48):
Got sure, yes, absolutely yes, eat them? Hey, also people,
we could absolutely do that.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Got nothing. You got to take pictures. The number two.
That's part of the gig. The number two is there.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
And if if the answer is no, like you're gonna
hurt my feelings, but I'll certainly understand. And maybe maybe
it would be it's coming, Maybe it would you know
it's coming. Maybe it would be a bad idea. Tyler's
a little bit of a it won't go. Could we
come visit?

Speaker 1 (20:23):
So that is something that I would definitely have to
get approved through our Body Farm committee.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
So that's the serial killer later, Yes.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
The serial killer later. Doctor Mary Ellen O'Toole, also doctor
Andy Yim he is our anthropologist, and doctor Brian Eckenrode
he is the temist that I had spoke about earlier.
So we have a body Farm committee. We do have
We have done interviews out at the body farm. Typically

(20:52):
we will allow people to that are doing these interviews
to go up to you know, where the gate of
the body farm is is. We show the vicinity and
the area in the inner acre. The only people that
are allowed in the inner acre, which is where the
humans are located, are the researchers as well as law enforcement.

(21:14):
And I think that you can probably understand why, Yes,
we have our guests are dead people for us. I
think you can understand why. Sure, it is an actual
research facility. So think about this. Remember when I talked
about my little crime fighters with wings or honeybees. Doctor
Eckenrode actually has these tubes that are down into the graves.

(21:37):
And what these tubes are is they are able to
be hooked up to a vacuum and they suck out
the vault to organic compounds, so the air that's surrounding
the decomposing human and if you think about air, we
have to be very careful about what we're bringing in
and out of the body farm. And so it is
a research lab and because of that, we have to

(21:59):
be respect told doctor eckenrote and the research that he's
doing and the research with my honey bees, and so
we really just can't have people treat seen through the
body farm.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
That is the longest, kindest hard no I have ever
heard in my life.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
But I couldn't agree.

Speaker 4 (22:17):
All right, So since I can't do that, can I
just I mean, now it's gonna sound this is gonna
sound horribly awkward.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Like can I just go to dinner with you and
just talk to you?

Speaker 1 (22:28):
We could, we could definitely, you know, get together, have
a coffee. I always love to talk about the body farm.
The two topics in my life that I love to
talk about the most are death and the body farm,
and adoption because I have seven kids, so those are
those are my passions.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
So I'm not taking your family out to dinner. That
I'm not doing expensive night.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
The we never take the family out for dinner, not
in this economy.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
Hey, so I'll tell you what the let me do
this Number one? Can I I want to get your
phone number. I definitely want to get you in the
shirts for the pigs. That would That'll make my day.
And listen if we if even if we could come
out and just walk around like where all those kids
go for the program where they could smell, I would
do that.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
I just want to see and listen.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
I totally get why you can't go in there at
that I understand, but I'd love.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
To come out there and just meet you guys.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Yes, we could do that. We can make that happen.

Speaker 4 (23:21):
Absolutely, all right, very good, very good. Hold tight one second,
let me make sure, let me make sure we have
your number. Okay, doctor Emily.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Okay, perfect, Thank you Elliott. Thanks for talking to me
this morning.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
Hey, you got it. Hold tight one second. Oh my god,
I love her. I love her. I'd marry her, except
I know that's a lot of kids forbid.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Fascinating. Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (23:45):
By the way, yeah, how about it that age being
you think that you're gonna die at the hands of
a serial killer.

Speaker 5 (23:53):
And I will say, the brain, the the money I
could have saved if in dealing with intrusive thoughts for
a daughter, all I had to do was bring her
to the Free Public Library. That would have changed everything.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
And what do we So we're definitely going to meet
up with them. Definitely doing that.

Speaker 5 (24:16):
Yeah, yeah, it sounds like she's okay with that.

Speaker 4 (24:18):
By the way, do you remember how excited I was
when whether it was Chris Warner or Sean Birch. And
there's a pig, there's an Elliott in the Morning T
shirt on top of Mount Everest on one of those pigs.

Speaker 6 (24:29):
This is this tops that, this is this is home
run that maggots. I was expecting a yes, Oh my god,
that's that is just great, all right, very good.

Speaker 5 (24:41):
Before she did give you the heisman, though, all the
talk of the bees got me excited because I did
tell you guys off air that if we were one
day granted access, I would dress like a bee keeper.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
That's true.

Speaker 5 (24:55):
And before she said no, over the it was so
and like Milton or something. It was an epic poem.
But I was thinking, well, I know they got those outfits.
I can't believe how my stars have a line for
this field trip.

Speaker 4 (25:12):
And just remember, if your curiosity is stronger than your fear,
think of what All the stuff you can do is let.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Your kids explore roadkill. That's what I took from that.

Speaker 5 (25:25):
I can't believe her mother thought she was going to
be a researcher.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
I would have thought suspect. I know, I love her.
She was unbelievable of her