Dr. Bass talks about the gap between how forensic science is portrayed on TV and how it practiced in real life. In real life, DNA labs are typically extremely backlogged. In this chapter, a grandchild of a deceased woman heard Dr. Bass lecture in her chemistry class and asked Dr. Bass for help getting a confirmed identification on the body in her grandmother’s (Leoma) grave. Dr. Bass turned to mitochondrial DNA testing to determine if Leoma was really in the grave. DNA was extracted from the skeleton and compared to two of Leoma’s daughters. The DNA did not come back as a match. The chapter ended with Dr. Bass bringing back the bones to the lab to figure who had been buried in Leoma’s grave. This case is revisited in two other chapters.
A review by Cailey Brogan