An electric saw buzzed through a lead container that had been sealed for 150 years. Slowly, the liner lid was removed, exposing the remains of Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States.
Face to face with the former president, a blue-ribbon panel of investigators was surprised to see a thick mass of dark hair and a large cloth bow under the chin.Since the president's appearance was meant to be brief, his hosts went to work immediately.
Bill Maples, a forensic anthropologist from the University of Florida, methodically cut away the president's clothing, finding abundant body hair beneath the one-piece, pleated shroud.
Then he took hair, nail and tissue samples, hoping they would prove whether the president had succumbed to arsenic poisoning or died of natural causes.
Ghoulish? Perhaps to most. But to forensic sleuths such as Maples, who focus on murders and other mysteries a century or more old, exhuming and examining the remains of celebrities from presidents to political assassins is business as usual.
It's possible to resolve such issues today, thanks to the extraordinary range and power of modern forensic techniques.
High-resolution microscopes, for instance, can analyze knife marks on bone, distinguishing between different knives or the marks left by animals.
X-rays can probe beneath the surface of grave sites.
Sophisticated chemical and nuclear technologies can detect trace amounts of incriminating poisons.
Using computers, experts can superimpose old photos of a victim or suspect on top of x-ray images of facial bones, determining if the identities are a match.
In fact, whether it's determining the identity of an 18th-century cannibal or investigating the fate of the Princess Anastasia Romanov, forensic anthropologists have begun to rewrite the history of murder, mayhem and sensational crime.
For a look at some of the most fascinating investigations to date, read on.
WHO KILLED THE KINGFISH?
- VICTIM: Huey Long, U.S. senator and former governor from Louisiana.
- DEATH NOTES: The politically powerful Long was shot and killed while visiting the Louisiana State Capitol on Sept. 8, 1935.
The presumed assassin, a 29-year-old physician named Carl Weiss, was killed by Long's bodyguards in a hail of gunfire at the scene.
- MURDER MYSTERY: Although the case against Weiss was considered open and shut at the time, questions began to emerge.
First, officials were never able to establish a genuine motive.
In addition, though police said Weiss' gun was found at the scene, no one could prove he had carried the gun into the Capitol.
Did Weiss really kill Long, or was he just a patsy, a fall guy set up by one of the many bitter political enemies Long had cultivated over the years?
- FORENSIC SLEUTHS: James Starrs, forensic scientist, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.; Douglas Ubelaker, curator of anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Lucien Haag, free-lance "criminalist" and weapons expert, Phoenix, Ariz.; Irvin Sother, state medical examiner, West Virginia; and Alphonse Poklis, toxicologist, Medical College of Virginia at Richmond.
- CLUES UNEARTHED: Weiss' remains were exhumed on Oct. 20, 1991, at the Roselawn Cemetery in Baton Rouge, La., and transported first to the Lafayette, La., pathology lab for cleaning, then to Ubelaker's lab at the National Museum of Natural History.
To identify the remains as those of Weiss, Ubelaker used the technique of photographic imposition to match the skull with old photos of the suspect.
To rule out the likelihood that Weiss committed the act as a result of a brain tumor or while under the influence of drugs, toxicologist Poklis examined the anatomy of the skull and analyzed the chemical content of tissue and bones.
Examining the remains, he also discovered that Weiss had been shot a minimum of 23 times, with half the wounds inflicted on his back.
Ubelaker also found that Weiss had been shot from a "variety of angles, implying that his assailants came from many directions."
Then Haag, an expert in firearms and tool marks, stepped in to examine the contents of files squirreled away by the police superintendent. Perhaps most telling was a .32-caliber bullet thought to have come from the scene of the crime.
After testing the bullet at the laboratory in Phoenix, Haag concluded it did not come from Weiss' gun.
Since Long's bodyguards carried only larger .38- and .45-caliber pistols, Haag notes, the mysterious bullet raises the question of a second, never-reported .32-caliber pistol somewhere on the scene.
It's possible, he proposes, that Weiss' gun was simply a plant to protect the identity of the true killer - the one who got away.
- CONCLUSION: As a result of the new evidence, the seemingly solid case against Weiss has been riddled with doubt.
WILL THE REAL PIZARRO PLEASE STAND?
- VICTIM: Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conqueror of Peru.
- DEATH NOTES: Francisco Pizarro, despised by native Peruvians because of his brutal reign, was stabbed to death by a crowd of angry subjects in 1541 at the age of 71 in full view of numerous witnesses.
Pizarro subsequently faded into history where he remained a topic for academicians and scholars for more than 350 years.
- QUESTION OF IDENTITY: The circumstances of Pizarro's death are not in question, having been well documented at the time.
However, in the 1890s, Peruvian officials decided to put Pizarro's remains on exhibit as part of an upcoming celebration of Christopher Columbus' voyage.
They asked officials at the Cathedral of the Plaza de Armas in Lima for Pizarro's body and were directed to a mummy, which they put on view.
Then, in 1978, workers in the cathedral uncovered a secret niche.
On a shelf inside the niche was a lead box with a skull and an inscription identifying the contents as the head of Pizarro.
Alongside this first box was another, this one containing unidentified bones.
- FORENSIC SLEUTHS: Bill Maples, anthropologist, University of Florida, Gainesville; and Bob Benfer, anthropologist, University of Missouri, Columbia.
- CLUES UNEARTHED: A preliminary investigation by one of Benfer's students showed that postcranial bones in the second box matched the skull in the first. The matching bones were then assembled with the skull.
The challenge for Maples and Benfer: determining whether the newly discovered bones contained marks consistent with knife or sword wounds and then determining whether similar wounds appeared on the mummy.
Using straightforward visual observation, the researchers determined that the skeleton had been stabbed multiple times, consistent with the reported demise of Pizarro.
The mummy, on the other hand, exhibited no injuries whatsoever and could not have been Pizarro at all.
- CONCLUSION: The remains of Pizarro had been hidden in the cathedral crypt all along.
The mystery solved, Peruvian officials exchanged the mummy with the bones, which are now on display instead.
THE SEARCH FOR ANASTASIA
- VICTIMS: Czar of Russia, Nicholas II; his wife, Alexandra; their five children, Olga, Tatlana, Marie, Anastasia and Alexis; the royal physician; and several royal servants.
- DEATH NOTES: On July 17, 1918, during the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian czar and his family along with the royal physician and some servants were awakened and taken to the basement of the house in which they stayed. There, they were greeted by a hail of bullets and then stabbed with bayonets.
According to one account, their bodies were hacked to pieces and soaked in acid. Two were burned.
- MURDER MYSTERY: According to rumors that have persisted, the princess Anastasia Romanov and her brother Alexis may have survived their grievous injuries and lived to tell the tale.
One observer, for instance, recalled the czar's youngest daughter sitting up and screaming after the initial volley of bullets. And in the years that followed, a number of people have claimed to be Anastasia herself.
Anna Anderson Manahan, who died in Charlottesville, Va., in 1984 at the age of 82, was probably the most publicized claimant. For 60 years she tried to convince people she was Princess Anastasia and even filed a lawsuit in Germany for an $85 million dowry supposedly held in trust.
German bankers were vague about the existence of a trust fund, however, and she lost the case.
Although a movie was made of her struggle, her claims were discounted, primarily because she could not speak Russian.
Was Manahan or another claimant the true Anastasia Romanov? Did the youngest czarist princess survive?
- FORENSIC SLEUTHS: Bill Maples; Lowell Levine, co-director of the New York State Police Forensic Sciences Unit in Albany; Michael Baden, New York City pathologist; and Catherine Oakes, microtomist, New York State Police.
- CLUES UNEARTHED: In 1991, Russian authorities exhumed the remains of nine bodies thought to be the czar and those who perished with him. Also retrieved from the grave site were bullets and a broken acid jar.
Soon after exhumation, American experts, including Maples and Levine, arrived at a lab in Yekaterinburg, a city some 800 miles east of Moscow.
The Americans quickly declared that historical accounts of the assassination were borne out by the condition of the remains.
"Three of the skulls showed clear evidence of gunshot wounds," Maples says, "and teeth and skulls showed evidence of etching and erosion by acid."
In fact, there was only one part of the story that could not be verified: the death of Anastasia. The skeleton of a 17-year-old female could not be found.
Maples sees one last way to prove that Anastasia died: Locate a fire pit containing the two bodies that were supposedly burned.
According to historical accounts, the burned bodies belonged to Alexis, the czar's son, and a maid. But Maples says one of the burned bodies could turn out to be Anastasia.
"If we found the bodies of two teenagers in a fire pit," he says, "I would feel confident that Anastasia did not survive."
- CONCLUSION: DNA analysis conducted by British scientists confirmed the findings of forensic sleuths who went to Russia.
After comparing blood samples taken from Prince Philip, a blood relative of the czar's wife, with tissue samples taken from the remains at Yekaterinburg, scientists were able to get a match.
At the moment, the fate of Anastasia has been thrown into question.
Russian investigators say Anastasia's remains were among those found. American experts are unsure.
Recently, a lock of hair said to belong to Anna Anderson Manahan has been produced and will soon be subjected to DNA analysis.
The experts hope they will be able to tell whether her genes and those of Prince Philip match.
PRESIDENTIAL POISON
- VICTIM: Zachary Taylor, 12th president of the United States.
- DEATH NOTES: On July 4, 1850, President Taylor dedicated the cornerstone for the Washington Monument.
After walking home from the ceremony, Taylor ate a bowl of cherries and drank a glass of cold milk. A short while later, he became violently ill with diarrhea, severe vomiting and dehydration.
Five days later he died.
- MURDER MYSTERY: At the time, Taylor's death was attributed to deadly gastroenteritis. But according to pundits, the same symptoms are characteristic of arsenic poisoning, and, they say, Taylor may have been murdered by enemies.
Historical novelist Clara Rising even has two prime suspects: then-Vice President Millard Fillmore and Kentucky senator Henry Clay.
Taylor opposed the extension of slavery, Rising explains, and supported the admission of California as a free state, something that would have made free states more numerous than slave ones.
After Taylor's death, however, Fillmore supported a compromise proposal by Clay in which California, a free state, was paired with New Mexico, a slave state; the balance of power was kept intact.
Motive enough to assassinate a president? Rising and others say maybe so.
- FORENSIC SLEUTHS: Clara Rising, Louisville, Ky.; Bill Maples; Dr. Richard Greathouse, Jefferson County coroner, Louisville; Dr. George Nichols, medical examiner, Commonwealth of Kentucky, Louisville; and Dr. William Hamilton, medical examiner, Gainesville, Fla.
- CLUES UNEARTHED: Before exhuming Taylor on June 17, 1991, researchers checked with White House historical records to determine if the president had been embalmed.
In the 1800s, embalming almost always involved the use of arsenic, and if he had been embalmed, it would have been impossible to tell whether Taylor had in fact been poisoned.
According to Rising, records show that Taylor's wife would not allow him to be embalmed. Oxidation of the coffin's lead liner caused by large quantities of seeping body fluids offers additional evidence that embalming did not occur.
The researchers also sent tissue samples to the Louisville medical examiner's toxicology lab and to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee., where it was placed in a powerful research reactor and bombarded with neutrons.
When bombarded with neutrons, different metals give off different levels of radiation; arsenic, of course, has its own telltale signature.
When the results were in, both the chemical and nuclear tests revealed only "normal levels of arsenic" consistent with neither embalming nor poisoning.
The labs also checked for the presence of other heavy metals, including mercury and antimony, and found none.
- CONCLUSION: The detailed tests found no evidence of arsenic poisoning. But despite the results, Maples says, it's remotely possible that Taylor was poisoned with arsenic after all and that the evidence has simply leached from his body over the years.